


When in Romania

by yoursecretkeeper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dragons, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15233535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoursecretkeeper/pseuds/yoursecretkeeper
Summary: Charlie Weasley loves life on the dragon reserve in Romania. When the Ministry sends beautiful, distant, and intimidating Jessica Sloan to evaluate the reserve, Charlie's life gets turned upside down.





	1. Jamaya

“Shit!”

Charlie was never going to play with that Chinese Fireball ever again. Jamaya, the newest dragon to come to the reserve, was a rather temperamental Chinese Fireball. Everyone hated her but Charlie had just thought she was misunderstood. He went out of his way to be nice to her, give her extra meals, play with her, and what did he get? A huge, very painful, burn down his entire left arm. Jamaya was officially evil.

“That’s what you get when you play with Fireballs,” Reese said barely concealing a smirk.

Melissa Reese was the main healer on the reserve. A big, burly woman in her early fifties, she knows her medicine better than anyone Charlie has ever met. Reese was always constantly yelling at Charlie whenever he did anything rash. Which, needless to say, was most of the time.

“She was lonely,” Charlie protested. He winced as Reese applied a green salve to his arm.

“That’s just what she wants you to think. Personally, I’d stay away from that one,” Reese warned.

“You say that about all of them,” Charlie reminded her.

“You would say the same thing if you had my years of treating dragon inflicted injuries,” Reese reasoned.

“And yet you’re still around,” Charlie said with a grin.

“Well someone has to take care of you idiots,” Reese joked.

Charlie’s laugh turned into a grunt of pain when the salve finally started taking action. The green paste had suddenly turned bright blue and his arm ached.

“What in the name of Merlin are you doing to me?!” he demanded to know. “This is not how you usually heal a burn!”

“I know I know,” Reese said looking irritated. “It’s some new fangled way that Graham is making us try.” Reese rolled her eyes as she said this.

Steven Graham, the healer in charge down on the reserve was always experimenting with new healing techniques that usually don’t work.

“Well it doesn’t bloody work!” Charlie growled. His arm was in a serious amount of pain.

“Suck it up Weasley,” Reese said as he glared at her. “If this works right that burn will be gone by tomorrow.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Charlie asked.

Reese just shrugged her shoulders.

“Brilliant,” Charlie remarked sarcastically.

“This isn’t my fault,” she said defensively. “Quit playing with dragons and you won’t have this problem.”

“Never,” Charlie replied with a grin. Reese just rolled her eyes at him.

“If you don’t start to think while you’re on the job you’re going to be out of commission much sooner than you’d like,” Reese said with a gentleness that had been absent in their previous discussion. Sometimes Reese got a little maternal with the dragon keepers. 

“It looks like we might all be out of commission a lot sooner than we’d like,” Jake Henderson, Charlie's best friend, said walking into the infirmary. 

“What?” Charlie asked in surprise.

Reese whipped around in shock and stared at Jake open-mouthed. As much as she complained about the keepers and their injuries she lived for her job. She loved it. Jake just shook his head and sat down. Reese kicked the chair right out from under him. “Speak Henderson,” she ordered.

Jake glared at her as he picked up his chair. “They’re sending the committee here,” Jake said glumly.

“The committee? What committee?” Charlie wanted to know.

“The Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures,” Reese sighed. 

“They’re saying that there are too many dragons in the area and they want to cut back one reserve,” Jake told them. 

“What?!” Charlie and Reese exclaimed at the same time. 

“Three representatives are supposed to arrive tomorrow around noon. They are staying here for two months to inspect and write a report,” Jake explained.

“And they’re picking us?” Charlie wanted to know.

“Not necessarily,” Reese said with a hint of desperation in her voice.

“The Department is sending out five different teams to five different reserves,” Jake revealed. 

“How do you know all this?” Charlie asked his friend.

“I was filling out some paperwork about that Ridgeback and I overheard Wentworth and Michaels talking about it,” Jake revealed. Eric Wentworth and Colin Michaels were keepers a couple years higher up than Jake and Charlie. So naturally Eric and Colin were privy to a lot more information. 

“I can’t believe they’re going to try and shut us down,” Charlie groaned. “And my arm hurts. Today sucks.”

“Today does suck,” Jake agreed with a sigh.

“Would you two quit acting like hormonal teenagers?!” Reese exclaimed. Both boys looked at her in surprise. “We are one of the best reserves on the continent! They are not shutting us down. When those representatives come here they’ll see that we’re the best and they won’t be able to shut us down.”

“Why is Charlie’s arm blue?” Jake asked.

“Failed experiment,” Charlie shrugged.

“Oh yeah, we’re the best,” Jake said sarcastically. Reese shot a glare at him. She looked like she wanted to kick the chair right out from under him again.

“What?” Jake asked defensively.

“We’re the best but you guys have to believe that if those representatives are going to as well,” Reese instructed. Jake looked a little taken aback but Charlie just smiled.

“You think my arm will still be blue tomorrow?” he asked her. Reese just looked at it before letting out a deep sigh.

“Screw Graham,” she said applying the old-school salve. Charlie felt an instant relief as the salve cooled his arm. It was still blue but it didn’t hurt anymore. He smiled up at Reese appreciatively but she just frowned at him. “You two better get your acts together,” she scolded.

“Yes mum,” Jake called out to her as he dragged Charlie out of the infirmary. Once they were out of her earshot Jake began to talk to Charlie in a rapid hushed tone.

“So they’re sending three representatives,” he began.

“Do we know who they are?” Charlie asked.

“I heard it’s two guys and a girl. They’re not too high up in the Department but high up enough to definitely influence the decision. Anyway, they’re supposed to get here tomorrow afternoon. They’re staying for two months,” Jake told Charlie.

“You’ve said all this already,” Charlie pointed out.

“I know I know I’m just trying to remember what I left out before. Oh right, Schmidt is assigning one of us to each of them. We have to show them around and make them think this place is great and all of that,” Jake informed him.

“Which is going to be impossible,” Charlie pointed out.

“Not impossible…just really hard,” Jake sighed.

“C’mon Jake there’s a reason those guys work for that Department,” Charlie insisted. It was somewhat of an unwritten rule that anyone who worked for the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures either loved or hated magical creatures. It was about a fifty-fifty chance that the reps they got would hate magical creatures.

“I know we’ve had bad experiences with Department Representatives in the past but maybe it will be different this time,” Jake mused. Charlie shook his head. They both knew that it would not be different this time around. They were only kidding themselves if they thought otherwise.

* * *

Charlie could not sleep at all. He tossed and turned throughout the entire night. All he could think about was the imminent arrival of the Department representatives that could ultimately ruin his life. Living on the reserve had only been his dream since his third year at Hogwarts. If the representatives decided to shut the reserve down everything he’d worked so hard for would be destroyed. Charlie wasn’t about to let that happen. He would just have to show the representatives how incredible the reserve was.

By the time Charlie managed to shut his eyes it was already three in the morning and he had to be awake in four hours. Life on the reserve started early. He woke up at seven every morning and he was a late riser. Most of the other keepers woke up around six. They all stumbled into the cafeteria on their own time; breakfast was served from 6:30 to 7:30. After eating they got their assignments for the day and went to work.

When Charlie rolled out of bed at seven he was exhausted. He wished that he could sleep in for once, but that would mean missing breakfast. Skipping meals wasn’t really an option for Charlie. If he didn’t eat he was grouchy. So Charlie regretfully got dressed and managed to make it into the cafeteria with fifteen minutes left to eat.

“You’re later than usual,” Jake said to him as Charlie made his way over to their usual table.

“Couldn’t sleep last night,” Charlie told his friend as he went off to find something to eat. He settled on some eggs and toast before going back to sit down.

“Did you see this morning’s assignments yet?” asked an irate Lea Cooper. She was the only female keeper on the reserve that didn’t look like a boy. She had unruly dirty blond hair and never bothered to keep up her appearance. Jake was desperately in love with her nevertheless. She came in the same year as Charlie and Jake and the three of them became fast friends.

“No why?” Charlie replied stuffing the toast into his mouth.

“Neither of us is on the schedule this morning!” she exclaimed angrily.

“What do you mean?” Jake asked in surprise.

“Not you Henderson,” she said to him, “Me and Charlie.”

“Why not?” Charlie wanted to know.

“I have no bloody idea,” she answered. Lea looked seriously mad. It was rare to not get an assignment. Usually only people who made serious mistakes and were being punished for it didn’t get assignments. “Let’s go find Schmidt!” she suggested sounding quite murderous. It was too early in the morning; Charlie didn’t have enough energy to get angry so he just followed her wordlessly.

“I’m sure it’s just a mistake,” Jake suggested. He was always optimistic.

“It better be,” Lea growled.

Charlie followed her through the cafeteria until they found the table where Russell Schmidt sat with the other reserve supervisors. He was relaxing and clearly enjoying his breakfast. Charlie felt bad for the bloke because Lea was about to ruin a seemingly peaceful moment.

“What gives Schmidt?” she asked without even greeting him. The man looked up from his meal to see Charlie and Lea standing in front of him.

“Excuse me?” Schmidt asked.

“Why did you leave me and Weasley off the schedule this morning?” Lea demanded to know. Charlie had to hand it to her, she was very assertive. Schmidt looked quite relieved to hear that was all she wanted to know.

“Don’t get too worried Cooper,” he said with a laugh. It was weird to see Russell Schmidt laugh. He was a rather tall and stern looking man. His hair was graying in several spots and he had stress lines on his face. He was only in his late forties but being the boss on the reserve was a stressful job. “I’m sure you heard about the Representatives coming.”

“Yeah we did,” Lea said nodding her head.

“Well I met with the board and we decided it would be more personal if we assigned a keeper to each rep. We’re gonna have the rep shadow our keepers to learn more about the reserve. I chose you, Wentworth, and Weasley to work with the reps. You didn’t get an assignment this morning because I have no idea when they’re going to arrive and I want you guys here when they do.”

As soon as Schmidt gave this explanation Lea’s anger evaporated.

“Wait…a representative is going to shadow us?” Charlie asked in shock. He couldn’t even begin to guess why Schmidt would have chosen him.

“Yes Weasley that’s what I said,” Schmidt said shaking his head at Charlie. “I know it’s early in the morning but do try to keep up.”

“I guess that’s acceptable,” Lea sighed. She clearly couldn’t make up her mind whether she should be flattered or not that Schmidt had chosen her to work with the representatives.

“You two hang around here after lunch and we’ll take about this with Wentworth,” Schmidt instructed. Lea and Charlie nodded before going back to their table.

“So what’s the verdict?” Jake asked curiously.

“Apparently we’re going to work with the reps so that’s why he didn’t give us an assignment,” Lea explained. Charlie just nodded, far too tired to say much of anything.

“That’s cool. I guess I’ll see you guys later,” Jake said as he picked up his garbage and threw it out. He made his way out to the fields to get to work on his assignment for the day.

Charlie and Lea stayed seated and watched as the cafeteria emptied around them. When the last of the keepers had finally left for the day Charlie, Lea, and Eric Wentworth went over to join their boss at his table.

“So what’s the plan?” Eric asked shortly after they were seated.

“We are going for the personal feel. That’s why we’re assigning each of you to one of the representatives,” Schmidt reiterated the point he’d made earlier.

“Do we know who the representatives are?” Lea asked.

“We’ve got names. Jessica Sloan, Robert Sloan, and Chase Roland,” Schmidt told Charlie and the others. “Jessica and Robert are brother and sister.”

“So who’s assigned to who?” Eric asked the question that was on all of their minds. Schmidt waved his wand and summoned some papers from his office.

“Wentworth you’re assigned to Robert,” Schmidt said handing Eric a stack of papers. Charlie assumed the packet contained some information about Robert Sloan. “Weasley you’re assigned to Jessica and Cooper you’re with Roland.” Schmidt gave Charlie and Lea their respective packets.

“Random question but why isn’t Lea assigned to Jessica?” Charlie asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the girls together?”

“That’s what I thought at first too,” Schmidt said nodding his head. “But the board felt that based on the information we have about the Sloans you and Wentworth should be with them.”

“What information?” Lea asked curiously.

“No clue,” Schmidt said shrugging his shoulders.

“What are we going to do with them exactly?” Eric asked.

“Well when they first get here I think a tour would be a good idea,” Schmidt told the group. “I’ll lead it and everyone can stick together. Then for the next two months they are just going to shadow you. The point is to get them to see the reserve from the viewpoint of the keepers.”

“So we have to do our job with a bunch of strangers following us around?” Lea asked scornfully.

“Well hopefully they won’t be strangers soon enough. That’s the whole point of this system,” Schmidt pointed out.

In theory, Charlie thought it was a pretty good idea. 

“What are we supposed to do until they get here?” Eric asked.

“You can go back to your tents for now I suppose,” Schmidt told them. He himself went back to his office.

Charlie, Eric, and Lea walked back to the living facilities on the reserve. The living facilities on the reserve were nicknamed Tent City, a patch of land about the size of a Quidditch pitch. The tents circled the perimeter of a large open field.

When Charlie first found out he would be living in a tent he wasn’t exactly thrilled. But the tents were truly magical. They appeared to be small and ordinary on the outside. A boring beige color with the only decoration being a black number on the front. However when you went inside the tents transformed into a vast and spectacular place. The interior of which reminded Charlie of the Gryffindor common room back at Hogwarts.

There was a lounge area decorated with comfortable furniture and random items like a chess set and broomsticks and several corridors branching off of the main room. Each led to an area that had about six doors to bedrooms. Unlike Hogwarts, on the reserve everyone had their own bedroom.

Charlie, Lea, and Eric all lived in tent five; the keeper tent. They ducked under the flap and appeared in the common room. Eric sat down on a couch and Lea flopped into the chair next to it. Charlie joined them.

“I can’t believe Schmidt expects us to just sit around until those reps get here,” Lea complained. “We could be doing something else with this time.”

“I know,” Eric agreed. “I was really making some headway with the Ridgeback.”

Eric loved Ridgebacks. Anytime one got sent to the reserve he tried to get assigned to it. Charlie didn’t really have any strong feelings about the matter. His arm was still blue thanks to his encounter with Jamaya yesterday.

“And I can’t believe we have to let them follow us around!” Lea added. “I don’t want to have to work with some random person breathing down my back.”

“It’s going to be annoying,” Eric agreed.

“Well it’s that or no job at all,” Charlie sighed.

If Schmidt’s plan didn’t work the reserve would close down and they would all be out of work. They had to make the best of the situation. He really wished Lea would stop complaining.

“Good point,” Eric conceded. Lea frowned but she couldn’t deny that Charlie was right.

“I’m going to take a nap until they get here,” Eric said getting up and disappearing down the hallway where his room was located.

“I think I might too,” Lea muttered getting up as well.

Charlie just stretched out on the couch. With everybody out on their assignments and Eric and Lea in their rooms the lounge was silent. He could rest just as easily there as he could in his room. Charlie had barely closed his eyes when Schmidt came bursting into the lounge.

“Weasley where are Wentworth and Cooper?” he demanded to know.

“In their rooms,” Charlie said sitting up.

“Tell them to meet in OB1 in ten minutes,” Schmidt ordered. “The reps are going to be here in half an hour.”

Charlie nodded. OB1, aka office building one. There were only six real buildings on the reserve. One was the cafeteria and then there were three research buildings and two administrative office buildings. Charlie knocked on Eric’s door first.

“What’s up?” Eric asked opening up his door.

“The reps are gonna be here in half an hour. Schmidt wants us in OB1 in ten minutes,” Charlie passed on the information.

“Wow, I guess we should get going then,” Eric said coming out of his room.

They went and got Lea before heading over to the buildings. The three keepers could barely talk as they walked. Charlie was nervous and he was sure his companions were as well. He couldn’t help feeling that the future of the reserve rested in part, on his shoulders. It was up to him to show this Jessica Sloan person how great life on the reserve could be.

“Get in here quick!” Schmidt said opening the door to the first office building upon their arrival.

“What’s with the urgency?” Lea asked sounding somewhat amused. Schmidt was beginning to look rather flustered.

“I just want to make sure you guys are ready,” he said while fidgeting nervously with the collar on his shirt. Charlie could tell that he was nervous.

“It will be fine,” Eric didn’t look bothered in the least.

“They’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” Schmidt ignored Wentworth and kept bustling around in his office. “Wait in the lounge!”

Eric, Lea, and Charlie left Schmidt’s office and walked down the hallway to the lounge area. There were only ten offices in each building and most of them went unused. It was a mystery to Charlie why the even had a lounge in the office building to begin with. No one ever went in there besides Schmidt and the other administrator guys.

“Do you think Schmidt is overreacting?” Lea asked the boys.

“No,” Charlie said at the same time as Eric said “Yes.”

Charlie and Eric just looked at each other and shrugged.

“Well which is it?” Lea prodded.

“The way I see it is there really isn’t that much we can do to influence these people,” Eric sighed.

“But we can influence them still,” Charlie added.

“I’m nervous,” Lea admitted.

Charlie was shocked to hear her say that. Lea was the kind of girl who didn’t like to show her weaknesses. She always played up her strengths; being one of the only girls on the reserve she had to.

“Me too,” Charlie told her.

“You guys shouldn’t be,” was all Eric seemed to be able to say.

The three of them were silent for a couple of minutes. Charlie heard voices down at the end of the hallway.

“That must be them!” Lea whispered anxiously. Charlie shifted in his seat nervously. Even Eric seemed to be a bit on edge.

“And this is the lounge,” Schmidt was saying. Eventually Russell Schmidt appeared with three strangers following him. “These are the keepers that are going to show you around for the next two months.”

Charlie looked up at the representatives. They looked so out of place in their neat business attire. “Hello,” Eric finally said, breaking the momentary silence.

“Robert Sloan this is Eric Wentworth. He’s going to work with you,” Schmidt said to the group of representatives. A dark-haired man, presumably Robert Sloan stuck out his hand for Eric to shake. He looked friendly enough; at least he was smiling.

“Nice to meet you,” Eric said professionally.

“You can call me Rob,” Rob or Robert smiled.

“Chase Roland this is Lea Cooper,” Schmidt motioned to Lea who appeared at Charlie’s side.

“I’ll be showing you around,” Lea told the other man. He was taller and light haired. Charlie felt bad for Lea. Chase didn’t look anywhere near as friendly as Robert had. But Charlie did his best not to judge the representatives by their looks.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Chase said to Lea as he shook her hand. Lea smiled back and Charlie could have sworn he heard her let out a sigh of relief.

“And last but not least, this is Charlie Weasley. Weasley this is Jessica Sloan,” Schmidt finally introduced the last representative. Jessica was intimidating looking to say the least. She had the same dark hair as Robert but it was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head. Her face resembled Robert’s but she lacked her brother’s friendly smile. She was petite looking and didn’t seem pleased to meet Charlie at all.

“Er, hello,” Charlie muttered. He then mentally cursed himself for being so awkward. He figured they should probably shake hands since everybody else had. “It’s er, nice to meet you,” he said extending his hand. Jessica glanced down at his outstretched hand as if she were criticizing it. Charlie was suddenly aware of how calloused and worn out his hands were. He half expected her to not take it. However she extended her incredibly small hand and surprised Charlie with a firm shake.

“Well now that we’ve gotten introductions out of the way I suppose we can take a tour?” Schmidt offered brightly. Charlie looked over at his boss. The smile on his face was a little forced but genuine nonetheless.

“Alright,” Jessica said pulling out a clipboard with parchment and a quill. The other two followed suit. It became apparent that she was the leader amongst them. Charlie groaned to himself. It was just his luck that he would get assigned to the most important person. “Alright let’s head to the fields first and work our way back,” Schmidt suggested as he led the way out of the office building and onto the reserve.

Charlie barely had any idea what Schmidt was showing the representatives. Charlie wasn’t exactly paying attention to where they were going. He was more focused on the reactions of the representatives. He watched their faces for scorn or approval. He tried to guess what their observations were as the reps recorded their first impressions of the reserve. Chase Roland, the blond guy, seemed skilled at keeping his face expressionless. He took all the information in while remaining perfectly impassive. Robert Sloan seemed to always be smiling. However, Charlie couldn’t tell if he was smiling because he genuinely liked the reserve or because he was laughing at how awful it was. Rob’s sister, Jessica, seemed to have a permanent frown on her face. She narrowed her eyes at Schmidt’s every word. She wrote notes, no doubt scrutinizing every aspect of the reservation. Charlie was going to have his work cut out for him.

After showing the reps the fields, research labs, and office buildings Schmidt led the group to the cafeteria. “It’s just about noon,” he informed the group.

“Lunchtime,” Eric said as his stomach growled a little. Robert laughed good-naturedly.

“I think we should stop the tour at the cafeteria and eat lunch with everyone,” Schmidt offered.

“Sounds great,” Lea said enthusiastically. Maybe, a little too enthusiastically because Jessica seemed to be narrowing her eyes again.

“Eat with the reps at my table,” Schmidt whispered in Charlie’s ear. So the group made their way inside the cafeteria. They got their food and the reps took even more notes. Eric led the way over to Schmidt’s table where they all sat down. Across the room Charlie could see Jake looking at them curiously. He shrugged his shoulders at his friend who sighed and went off to find other keepers to sit with.

Charlie watched as Robert, Jessica, and Chase each examined the food being served before putting some on their plates. Robert looked down at the food with a pleasant expression. He eagerly added food to his plate. Chase was more hesitant, picking and choosing what looked safe. Jessica was the least enthused. She observed the food in the cafeteria with narrowed eyes. Charlie saw her glance at Lea’s tray before adding some of what Lea was eating to her plate. He could already imagine what their critiques of the food on the reserve would be like. Eventually everyone was seated and eating.

The usual swell of chatter in the cafeteria picked up and it felt like just another day at lunch…almost. Charlie was unnerved by the presence of the three representatives. He knew Lea, Eric, and Schmidt were as well, even though they all tried to hide it. Everyone was freaking out just a little bit on the inside.

“This is where we have all of our meals,” Schmidt was saying. “We have excellent cooks on staff who prepare the food for everybody on the reserve.”

“What do you do with the leftovers?” asked Jessica Sloan. Charlie noticed that she had taken out her notepad and was writing down her observations. She now had a pair of glasses perched on her nose as she wrote.

“Save them,” Schmidt told her with a shrug.

The cafeteria was open twenty-four hours. Although there were only three meals served a day the cafeteria remained open and stocked with various food items just in case someone got hungry and needed a snack. Schmidt was busy explaining this to Jessica and Charlie felt a little guilty. Schmidt had assigned Jessica to him. Charlie should be the one fielding her questions. It was part of his job now. But Charlie was rather unnerved by Jessica Sloan. He didn’t know what to make of her. Charlie felt completely ridiculous being intimated by a girl. He was a Gryffindor and a Dragon Keeper for crying out loud. He shouldn’t be intimidated just because a beautiful girl has the power to destroy his very way of life.

Jessica had finished questioning Schmidt, put away her glasses and notepad, and returned to her meal. She was now listening to Robert and Chase’s conversation looking very intent. Eric was trying to act like he was a part of the conversation so Charlie and Lea figured they should do the same.

“Do you get injured a lot?” Chase asked Lea. Lea looked surprised at being addressed but she recovered quickly.

“It depends on what dragon I’m working with. I just bond better with some of the breeds so those don’t injure me as much. But I have gotten my fair share of injuries. It’s not a problem. We just head straight to the infirmary and Reese or one of the healers can fix us up,” Lea explained.

“Our healer team is great,” Charlie agreed.

“You would know,” Eric joked. Charlie smiled good-naturedly as Lea explained the private joke to the three newcomers. 

“Charlie gets hurt just about every day. He’s got more injuries than every keeper in my year put together,” Eric told them.

“That’s an exaggeration,” Charlie tried to defend himself while laughing. It was somewhat true. Charlie got hurt a lot more than the other keepers. But that was only because he did things that everyone else was too scared to even attempt.

“Barely an exaggeration,” Lea sighed shaking her head. “He only gets hurt so much because he’s the bravest. Weasley does what the rest of us don’t want to even try.” Charlie smiled at her, grateful for the compliment.

“Is that why your arm is blue?” Jessica asked him.

“Er, actually that’s a healing experiment gone wrong,” Charlie admitted. He felt as though he could read Jessica’s thoughts. She would no doubt be mentally deciding how to describe Charlie’s blue arm in her reports. Charlie could just picture it now: Romanian Reserve-inadequate healing techniques. Keepers are often disfigured due to failed experiments.

“What happened?” Jessica continued her questions.

“The healer in charge, Graham, really loves to experiment. Only he doesn’t always think all of the experiments through. My arm got burned yesterday and we were experimenting with a way of making burns heal faster but not using a salve,” Charlie attempted to explain his blue arm. Jessica nodded and didn’t say anything else on the subject. Charlie half expected her to pull out her notepad and start scribbling away about failed healing techniques but she just went back to eating.

“I think the tour is pretty much over,” Schmidt said to the three representatives. “All that’s left is the actual dragons and our quarters so I’ll be heading back to the offices. Wentworth go find Michaels and show Mr. Roland that Short-Snout he’s working with. Cooper you can head out to the Longhorn. Weasley, I think Henderson could use some help with the Fireball.”

Charlie inwardly groaned. The last thing he wanted to be doing was working with Jamaya. Of course, it was just his luck that he would have to show Sloan one of their most dangerous dragons. She was going to think he was completely incapable of handling dragons. At least Jake would be there. Charlie looked over at Sloan. She was looking up at him expectantly. Charlie noticed that Lea and Chase were already gone and Rob and Eric were getting up. He sighed.

“Er, follow me this way,” Charlie said to her.

Jessica and Charlie threw out their trash and put their dishes away. Then Charlie walked over to where Jake was sitting.

“Jake this is Jessica Sloan, one of the representatives from the Department. Miss Sloan this is my friend Jake Henderson,” Charlie introduced the pair of them.

“Nice to meet you,” Jake said extending his hand for Sloan to shake. She accepted and nodded her head in acknowledgement.

“Schmidt said to go with you when you head back out to Jamaya,” Charlie told his friend. “The Fireball’s name is Jamaya,” he informed Sloan who just nodded.

“Alright,” Jake said getting up, “Let’s get going then.”


	2. Sloan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The representatives arrive at the reserve and Charlie realizes he's going to have his work cut out for him with Jessica Sloan.

Jake, Charlie, and Jessica walked out of the cafeteria and towards the fields where Jamaya was kept. It was quite a walk; Jamaya was one of the more dangerous dragons they had on the reserve so she was kept quite out of reach.         

“Er, you might want to change,” Charlie said looking down at Sloan’s clothes. High heels were definitely not the best shoe choice for traipsing through the dragon fields. Sloan waved her wand and instantly her shoes became boots and her skirt turned to jeans. Even in casual clothes she managed to look a lot more put together than any of the other girls on the reserve.

“Almost there!” Jake called out to them from a couple feet ahead. They walked through a clearing and emerged in one of the more open fields. Several yards ahead, the huge bright red fireball was walking around.          

“She isn’t kept in an enclosure?” Sloan asked raising an eyebrow.

“We have wards set up so she can’t get past certain areas,” Jake explained.

“She can’t fly out over them either,” Charlie added. Sloan still looked wary. Charlie imagined what she would write about the living quarters of the dragons. _Dragons are kept in open spaces. They are not physically tied down and it looks as if they could escape easily. Passersby should beware._

“I’ve gotta feed her lunch,” Jake sighed. “We could use your help Charlie.” The team of interns working with Jake, Rex Keble and Mark Carmichael, followed Jake into the clearing.

“C’mon,” Charlie motioned for Sloan to follow him as he made his way towards the dragon.

“We’re going to get closer?” Sloan asked warily. When Charlie looked back at her he could have sworn he saw a flicker of fear in her eyes.

“Well yeah,” he said, thinking it was quite obvious. She didn’t look very comfortable with that idea. “Jake’s gonna take her down first, get her chains on and then when she wakes up we have to feed her. It should only take about fifteen minutes.” Sloan didn’t look very assured but Charlie didn’t really care—he had a job to do. “Stay here for a second,” he said to her as he ran ahead to catch up with Jake.

Jake, Rex, Mark, and Charlie all aimed their spells at Jamaya who roared stubbornly before passing out. They had to act quickly because they only had five minutes before she woke up. Rex pulled over three magically enhanced chains from nearby. He gave one to Mark, Charlie, and Jake each. Mark attached his to one of Jamaya’s front legs, Charlie attached his to one of her hind legs, and Jake hooked his to her neck. Rex attached the ends of all of them to a stone pole that was held in place by magic. They all quickly backed off. Charlie motioned for Sloan to join him. She didn’t look very enthusiastic about it but she came over to stand by them.

Most of the people that worked for the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had very strong feelings about the creatures. They either absolutely loved creatures and wanted to help keep them safe or they absolutely hated creatures and wanted to pass laws and restrictions to make sure the creatures didn’t have a lot of freedom. Judging from the look on her face Sloan joined up with the Department because she hated magical creatures. That was going to make Charlie’s job extremely difficult.

“She’s probably going to be pissed when she wakes up,” Jake sighed as he conjured the meat they were supposed to feed Jamaya.

"She hates people,” Rex said darkly. He glared at the dragon.

“She’s evil,” Mark agreed with an enthusiastic nod of his head.

“She’s not that bad,” Charlie said in the dragon’s defense. Mark raised an eyebrow at him and Jake laughed.

“Charlie just yesterday you were cursing her very existence,” Jake pointed out. That was true. Yesterday, after one of his attempts to get through to Jamaya failed, Charlie had been convinced that Jamaya was just plain mean. But that was right after she burned him. Now seeing her again, looking so peaceful Charlie couldn’t help but think that she was just misunderstood.

“I know but I think she might just be,” he began.

“Misunderstood,” Jake, Rex, and Mark all said together. Rex even rolled his eyes. Charlie was constantly insisting that they were all wrong about Jamaya.

“I bet he didn’t tell you,” Jake said to Sloan, “she’s the one who burned him.”

“And why his arm is blue,” Mark added with a snort at Charlie’s blue arm.

“Watch it Carmichael,” Charlie growled at the intern. Sloan looked over at Charlie and his blue arm. He just shrugged his shoulders.

“It happens. We get burned a lot,” Rex said in Charlie’s defense. Rex was probably just sucking up to him but Charlie appreciated the back-up nonetheless. 

Suddenly Jamaya began to move and Charlie noticed Sloan tense up. As the dragon was stirring Jake tossed a huge chunk of whatever meat they’d procured at her. Jamaya sniffed the meat and growled angrily. She was never satisfied with what they brought her. She hated everything but usually wound up eating it anyway, only after severe tempter tantrums. Rex tossed a smaller chunk of something else towards Jamaya. It landed near her feat and the dragon was not pleased. Mark tossed the meat he’d brought to her as well. Jamaya sniffed it and displayed her disapproval. She let out a burst of flames towards them. Everyone took several steps back and Charlie instinctively threw out his arm in front of Sloan.

After Jake and his interns had thrown several pieces of meat her way Jamaya seemed to realize she wasn’t getting anything else. The dragon eventually began to eat. She let them all know just how unhappy she was with the occasional snarl or flame.

“Is she always that moody?” Sloan asked. Her eyes were still warily trained on the fuming dragon.

“She’s usually worse,” Charlie sighed.

“You would think she’d be happy to be eating,” Mark remarked whilst staring confusedly at Jamaya.

“She’s never happy,” Rex said shrugging his shoulders.

“One of these days we’ll figure her out,” Charlie declared confidently. He fully believed that once they discovered how she functioned they could get her to warm up to them. For now, they would just have to try their best to not get burned.

            After Jamaya was finished eating she let out a fierce roar. She was not thrilled to still have the chains on her. Charlie motioned for Sloan to stand back as he went with Jake, Rex, and Mark to stun the dragon. The keepers stunned Jamaya and made quick work of removing her chains.       

“C’mon let’s move back,” Jake said to the others. Charlie motioned for Sloan to follow them as they backed away from the dragon. Within moments Jamaya was awake again and stretching her wings.         

“Damn would you check out that wingspan,” Mark said as they watched Jamaya.

“It’s incredible,” said Rex nodding in agreement. They watched the scarlet and gold colors dance across the dragon’s back. In the fading sunlight Jamaya looked rather beautiful. Everyone thought so. Well everyone except for Sloan apparently. While the keepers were staring transfixed at the dragon she just kept glancing at her watch. Jake left some meat in the corner of her quarters, just in case Jamaya got hungry again, and the group headed back to the cafeteria for dinner.

“Something smells good,” Mark declared as they made their way back. Charlie took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of their dinner. It did small rather appetizing. Sloan had already changed back into her business looking clothes and looked eager to get back inside.

Instead of sitting at the administrators’ table Lea and Chase were sitting where Lea usually sat with Jake and Charlie. Jake said goodbye to his interns and then went to sit with Lea and Chase. Charlie paused briefly. He considered sitting with Eric and Colin so that Sloan could be with her brother where she would feel more comfortable. In the end he settled for taking the seat next to Jake. He didn’t feel like dealing with Eric and Colin that evening.

Gradually the cafeteria began to fill and the kitchen staff announced that dinner was ready. The interns got to eat first since at the reserve, meals worked backwards. The system was this way mostly because the interns got stuck with doing the awful tasks that no one felt like doing.

Eventually Lea led their table over to collect their food. It turned out that the meal that smelled so delicious before was quite the buffet. There was steak, mashed potatoes, pasta, fruit salad, pie, cake, and the list went on and on. Charlie figured Schmidt had asked the cooks to make an extra nice meal for the reps’ first night.

“This food is great,” Chase remarked as they were settling down to eat.

“It’s not always this nice,” Lea was quick to point out. Jake shot her a look. “What?” she said, “I don’t want them getting false hope here.” Charlie was sure if Jake wasn’t so in love with her he would have rolled his eyes at that. He could just picture what Sloan would write in her evaluation. _Food is occasionally great but mostly sub-par._

“Good to know,” Chase said in reply and went back to eating his dinner. There was a lull in the conversation after that. Charlie desperately wanted to say something, anything, to break up the awkward silence but he just couldn’t.

“No one got burned today,” Jake told Lea. It was his desperate attempt to create conversation.

“Not even Charlie?” Lea asked jokingly.

“Not even once,” Charlie smiled. “And my arm is now a light blue rather than bright turquoise thank you very much.”

“Saw my first dragon feeding,” Chase remarked. He didn’t look like he enjoyed it very much. “It was pretty gross.”

“You get used to it,” Jake added with a shrug. Sloan remained silent. Charlie really had his work cut out for him. It was going to be hard work to get Sloan to enjoy life on the reserve.

“Cake is good,” Lea mused.  

“Eh, I liked the one from two days ago better,” Jake commented. Charlie wanted to contribute to the conversation but it was so forced and awkward that he just couldn’t bring himself to say anything.          

“The weird red one?” Lea asked with a laugh.

“Red velvet…and it was delicious,” Jake declared.

Eventually dinner was over and the cafeteria began emptying out. Some people went back out to the fields to visit their favorite dragon. Some went into the office buildings to finish up paperwork. Most everybody else went back to Tent City.

“Is it true you guys sleep in tents?” Chase asked curiously.            

“Yes and no,” Lea responded with a smirk.

“What do you mean?” he wanted to know.

“You’ll see,” she replied smiling. The group walked towards the sleeping quarters and in the light of the sunset Tent City looked quite spectacular. Charlie glanced over at Chase and Sloan who were both staring at the tents with expressions of awe. Some people had gotten back to Tent City before them and were stretched out on the grass in the middle of the area. The sounds of laughter and talking drifted towards them. A few of the interns had started up a game of football. The summer night air was warm and an infectious glow seemed to be spreading throughout the atmosphere.

“Welcome to Tent City!” Jake declared.

"They still look like tents to me,” Chase muttered after some moments and Lea rolled her eyes at him behind his back.

“We sleep in tent five,” she said pointing to the keepers’ tent.

“You guys are gonna stay with us,” Charlie told them.

“Do you wanna see the inside?” Lea asked.

“Yes, alright,” Sloan said, speaking for what to Charlie, seemed like the first time in ages. Lea led the group over to tent number five. Charlie held back the flap and allowed everyone to step through. He followed in after.

To say that the representatives were surprised would be an understatement. From the looks on their faces it seemed that they were expecting to be led into a log cabin or something. Chase was in complete disbelief. He kept looking around as if he were expecting the real living quarters to appear. Sloan just appeared to be in awe.

“So um, if you go down this hallway,” Charlie said breaking the silence, “this is where we sleep.” Sloan and Chase followed him. “Jake is down there,” Charlie said pointing to Jake’s door. “Lea on the far left. That’s Eric in the middle…I think Rob’s next to him,” Charlie tried to remember where everyone had been assigned. “Chase you’re over there and I’m right here,” Charlie leaned back against the door to his room, “And Sloan you’re next to mine over here.” Chase poked his head inside the room he’d been assigned and Sloan did the same. Charlie and Lea looked at each other not quite sure what to do. 

“I think that was the most I’ve said to either of them all day,” Charlie said in a low voice to his friends. Jake laughed and Lea sighed.   

“Wentworth is so lucky,” she muttered so that Chase and Sloan wouldn’t be able to hear. “He’s got the friendly one. I saw them laughing together at dinner.”

“At least Chase talks,” Charlie sighed. “I can’t get the girl to say a word!”

“I’d rather Chase keep his stupid mouth shut,” Lea hissed. Her frown changed to a forced smile when she saw Chase coming back out of his room.

“I’ve got to admit. I’m rather pleasantly surprised,” he told them. Lea bit her lip, fighting back a sarcastic retort. Sloan came out of her room and as usual didn’t say a word. She just looked at Charlie, Jake, and Lea expectantly.

“Well um we usually just do whatever before we got to bed,” Lea said rather awkwardly. “We have to wake up early, close to six to eat breakfast.”

“Breakfast only goes for an hour,” Jake chimed in.

“So don’t stay up too late,” Lea added.

“I’m going to go find my brother if that’s alright,” Sloan told them.

“Er, yeah, alright,” Charlie muttered.

“I’ll go with you,” Chase said eagerly. Charlie could have sworn he saw Sloan roll her eyes.

“Fine Roland lets go,” Sloan hissed at him. Charlie was starting to think it wasn’t just him Sloan disliked; she seemed to dislike everyone. Charlie watched the two of them leave in search of Rob.

“That was uncomfortable,” Jake commented.

“Tell me about it,” Lea sighed as the three of them made their way back to the common room area. They took their favorite seats off in the corner of the room. “Chase pretends he’s nice but I can tell it’s just an act. Give it a week or two and he’ll be the most annoying person on the reserve.” Lea sighed as she collapsed into her chair.

“At least you can have a conversation with the guy. Sloan barely says a word to me,” Charlie complained.

“You’re not exactly a skilled conversationalist yourself,” Leah pointed out. Charlie was about to protest when she provided a rather good imitation of his mumbling “Er, yeah, um."      

“I only do that when I’m nervous!” he pointed out.

“Which is about fifty percent of the time,” Jake joked.

“She doesn’t seem like a people person,” Lea eventually agreed with Charlie.

“And she definitely hates dragons,” Charlie added.

“She did not look too thrilled when she met Jamaya,” Jake mused.

“No one is thrilled to meet an angry fireball,” Lea laughed, “except maybe you Charlie.” Jake and Lea laughed and Charlie just smiled. Moments later Eric and Colin came into the tent talking animatedly.

“Hey Weasley!” Eric called out when he spotted the trio in their usual spot. “How’s your half of the Sloan siblings?” he asked walking over to them.  

“Not so great,” Charlie told him.

“Really?” Eric looked surprised. “Rob’s great,” he said smiling. “The guy is so easy to get along with.”

“I think the exact opposite can be said for his sister,” Jake laughed.

“Really?” Colin wondered. “Rob was talking about her and she seemed pretty cool.”

“The girl never talks,” Charlie told the other keepers.

“Yeah, well they’ve been through a lot. I’m not surprised,” Eric said as Colin nodded his head in agreement.

“What do you mean?” Lea asked.

“Ah well I guess it makes sense she didn’t tell you. But they’ve had a rough life,” Colin sighed. Charlie could tell the two older keepers were enjoying having information that the other three didn’t. It was pretty irritating.

“What happened to them?” Jake asked curiously.

“It’s a long story Henderson,” Eric shrugged his shoulders. Charlie got the feeling that it wasn’t a happy story either.

“Maybe we’ll tell you one day when you’re older,” Colin said with a laugh. Lea glared at him. She opened her mouth, about to tell them off but then Rob and Chase came in through the flap. Eric and Colin went over to talk to them and the four men were soon playing Exploding Snap on the opposite side of the room.

“I hate Michaels,” Jake sighed.

“Me too,” Lea agreed. “And in a week or two Chase Roland is going to turn into him. Just you wait.”

“The last thing we need is two of him,” Charlie muttered darkly.

“You’re telling me,” Lea frowned. “I wonder what happened to the Sloans that was so terrible.”

“They were probably just making stuff up to annoy us,” Jake said shaking his head. “It would be so typical Michaels to do that.”

“I don’t know about that,” Charlie disagreed. “Eric was the one who brought it up. And he seemed pretty genuine. I think something terrible really did happen to them.”

“They must have each handled the situation very differently,” Lea added thoughtfully.

“And something had to happen to make her hate dragons,” Charlie put in.

“If she hates them Rob probably hates them too,” Jake concurred.

“But Rob seemed so nice,” Lea protested. Charlie laughed.

“His personality doesn’t have anything to do with how he feels about dragons,” he pointed out. Charlie watched as Eric, Colin, Chase, and Rob went off down the hallway to their bedrooms.

“What time is it?” he asked Jake. Jake glanced down at his watch.

“Almost ten,” came his reply.

“We should really start getting to bed then,” Lea said getting up. Jake agreed. Charlie was about to head off to his room when he realized Sloan wasn’t in the tent.

“Did either of you two see Sloan come back in here?” he asked his friends. They both shook their heads.

“Maybe she’s outside,” Jake suggested.

“Yeah, I should go check though,” Charlie sighed. He stepped outside of the tent and headed towards the circle of grass in the middle. There was hardly anyone left outside. There were still balls of light floating outside each tent so that people could see if they had to go outside for some reason but other than that it was pitch black. Charlie scanned the circle before spotting a lone figure sitting down, looking up at the sky. It had to be her. Charlie walked over to the person and recognized Sloan’s business looking shoes and jacket on the grass next to her. He figured he should probably say something but he had no idea what. Instead Charlie just took a deep breath and sat down next to her.

Sloan looked over at him, mildly surprised to see him beside her. The summer night air was warm and she’d rolled up the sleeves of her white oxford to reveal her pale slender arms. Her hair was still tied back in her tight bun but other than that she looked rather relaxed. Sloan had her legs stretched out in front of her and was leaning back on the palms of her hands.

“Nice night,” he observed looking up at the sky. Charlie could see every star in the Romanian sky.

“I haven’t seen the sky so open like this in about ten years,” she sighed. Charlie was taken aback by the fact that she was speaking to him in such a manner.

“Why not?” he asked still not taking his eyes off of the sky.

“Paris is a bright busy city at night. You can’t really see the stars, at least not like this,” Sloan told him.

“You live in Paris?” Charlie wondered although the answer was pretty obvious. He just never imagined her as being French. She didn’t even have an accent.

“For the past seven years,” she said not bothering to look away from the sky either.

“Where did you live before that?” he asked finally looking over at her.

“Everywhere,” she said. Sloan smiled at him for a second and then looked back over at the stars. “I went to Beauxbatons for school though, so Rob and I figured we’d stay in the country.”

“But you didn’t grow up in France?” Charlie wondered. Sloan shook her head.

“We had to learn to speak French when we were about fifteen. It took us awhile to figure it out. I’m still not the best…but we’re both relatively fluent.” Something in that story didn’t add up. Charlie thought about it. Sloan said they went to school in Beauxbatons, which is in France, so they should have had to learn to speak French when they were eleven. Charlie’s confusion was evident on his face and Sloan noticed it.

"So you learned French when you were fifteen…then where did you go to school before you were fifteen?” Charlie asked curiously.

“We didn’t,” Sloan simply shrugged.

“Did your parents teach you magic at home or something?” Charlie felt a bit nosy but he really wanted to know the story.

“No we taught ourselves. Our parents died when we were young,” Sloan told him in a soft voice.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Charlie instantly felt guilty for making her tell him that. He’d been too nosy. And now he felt a little awkward. Sloan shrugged the apology off.

“Everyone says that when I say our parents died,” she said with a feeble laugh. “You don’t have to say you’re sorry. It’s not like you killed them.” Charlie got the feeling Sloan didn’t like sympathy anymore than Lea did.

"Yeah, but it still sucks,” Charlie sighed. He sensed that there was more to her story but he didn’t want to ask any more questions and she didn’t seem to want to tell him. They sat in silence just staring up at the sky. It wasn’t an awkward silence but it wasn’t a friendly one either.

Charlie then realized he was analyzing the silence and knew he was overtired. He didn’t know what time it was but it had to be at least past ten. With one last look up at the sky Charlie got to his feet.

“It’s getting late,” he said to Sloan when she looked over at him. “I think I’m going to call it a night. You coming in?” Charlie half expected her to say no and sit outside a little while longer.

“Yeah,” she said gathering her shoes and jacket. Charlie, in a moment of gallantry, extended his arm down to help pull her to her feet. Again, part of Charlie expected her to not take his hand and get up herself. But she placed her significantly smaller hand in his and Charlie pulled her to her feet.

They walked back over to tent five in silence, once again. But Charlie didn’t find this silence uncomfortable at all. Maybe the reason Sloan didn’t talk to him a lot throughout the day wasn’t because she didn’t like him but simply because she liked the quiet. At any rate, he felt less dislike for her after their short but honest discussion. Charlie held back the flap as she climbed through. Sloan mumbled a quiet thanks as he came in behind her.

The common area was completely empty now with everyone else having gone off to bed. They walked down the hallway where the bedrooms were located. From the outside of the door you could usually tell who slept inside. On Colin’s door there was nothing but his name printed in dull gray letters. Eric had a poster of his favorite Quidditch team, The Tornadoes, and a small picture of him with his parents. Jake’s door had his name and a picture of Charlie, Lea, and himself. Charlie smiled every time he saw it. Lea kept her door clean. Her name was printed in neat cursive and she had painted it blue instead of the usual white.

“You remember which is yours?” he asked Sloan who was just sort of looking at his door. She hastily averted her eyes and nodded.

“Goodnight,” she said and without waiting for a reply disappeared into her room. Charlie glanced at his door before opening it to see what she’d been looking at so intently.

Besides his name the only thing on Charlie’s door was a picture of his family. It was taken over the winter holidays back when Charlie and Bill were both still in school. His mum and dad stood in the back, arms around each other. Fred and George were fighting about something. Percy was yelling at the pair of them. Ron and Ginny were eating cake and Charlie was sitting in the middle with Bill; the two of them just laughing. He wondered why Sloan was staring at the picture but didn’t think much of it. Maybe she’d never seen so many red headed people in one room. Charlie just shook his head and went into his own room. As soon as he was changed into his nightclothes he collapsed onto his bed. He was asleep moments after his head hit the pillow.

 

 


	3. Sabra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Sloan are assigned to work on a case with the Reserve's research team. She surprises him with her depth of knowledge about magical creatures and the research process.

The next morning Charlie woke up on time for breakfast. That in itself was a huge accomplishment. Charlie also felt that he had made a lot of headway with Sloan during their discussion the previous night. They’d finally conversed like civil people. It was rather satisfying. Charlie thought maybe he’d gotten her to warm up to him. That too, would be a great accomplishment. Unfortunately, as it would turn out Charlie thought wrong.

At breakfast Sloan looked just as cold and professional as ever. When Charlie walked into the cafeteria she was already there with Chase and Jake. Her hair was pulled back into her ridiculously uptight bun and she was wearing her glasses as she scribbled away in her notebook.       

“Today is not going to be a good day,” Jake said walking up to Charlie.

“What makes you say that?” Charlie asked his friend. Jake just shrugged as they made their way over to the food.

“I just have a really bad feeling about today…that’s all.” Charlie looked out the windows at the reserve. There seemed to be clouds forming overhead and the sun was refusing to come out. Maybe Jake was right. If one set anything by omens, today was not looking so great.

After getting their food Charlie and Jake walked over to the assignment board to see where they would be working. Charlie scanned the list, looking for his name. He heard Jake swear beside him and Charlie wasn’t exactly thrilled when he saw his assignment either. He was teamed up with Beatrice Whalen and they were assigned to the Horntail. There was also going to be a team of researchers trying to study something or another.

“What’d you get?” Charlie asked his friend. Jake did not seem too thrilled with his assignment either.

“Jamaya with Lea and Chase,” Jake sighed. That didn’t seem too bad to Charlie but Jake seemed to think it was awful.

"Why is that so bad?” Charlie wanted to know.

“You know how I feel about Jamaya,” Jake said shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah but you had her yesterday and she was fine,” Charlie reminded him. And it didn’t make sense that Jake would be upset about having to work with Lea. He loved Lea and he loved working with her. “It’s Chase isn’t it?” Charlie asked, comprehension finally dawning on him.

“He just rubs me the wrong way,” Jake admitted.

“Because he gets to spend all his time with her,” Charlie continued. Jake and Charlie didn’t really talk about Jake’s feelings for Lea. It was one of those understood and unspoken things between two friends.

“I guess,” Jake sighed. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it so Charlie dropped the subject. Eric Wentworth and Colin Michaels had materialized at some point during the conversation.

"What’d you get?” Michaels asked them. Jake just glared at him so Charlie answered.

“Whalen and the Horntail.”

“That’s rough,” Eric said.

"Yeah I don’t know which is worse…the Horntail or Beatrice the Whale,” Colin laughed derisively. Charlie frowned at him before walking away. Colin was one of the rudest people Charlie had ever worked with.

“I hate that guy,” Jake muttered under his breath. Charlie agreed silently. Colin Michaels knew he had more influence and power at the reserve than other keepers and he loved it. In a moment of true cruelty he created the nickname Beatrice the Whale for poor Beatrice Whalen. While it was true that most of the girls on the reserve weren’t exactly pleasing to the eye Charlie would never disrespect them that much. Beatrice wasn’t even that large, she was just big boned and muscular.

“He’s a jerk,” Charlie said to Jake as they settled down at their table. Sloan had finished writing whatever it was that she was writing and had turned to eating her breakfast. Lea was feigning interest as Chase talked animatedly. Clearly he was warming up to her.

"Who’s a jerk?” Lea asked when she heard them. She looked up at her fellow keepers, eager for a change in the topic of conversation.

“Colin Michaels,” Jake growled as he sat down. Jake was a genuinely nice guy and he hated it when people acted like Colin.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Lea sighed in agreement. “At least we’re not working with him today.” Jake nodded but didn’t say anything. He was still not too pleased with Chase’s company. 

“He didn’t seem that bad when I talked to him,” Chase commented.

“That’s because he has to suck up to you so you’ll write a good evaluation,” Lea said bluntly. Charlie laughed into his cereal as Chase considered this. Jake smirked and Sloan remained impassive.

Eventually it came time to head out to the fields to work on their assignments. Jake, Lea, and Chase went in the opposite direction from Charlie and Sloan who were going towards the more forest covered area of the reserve.

“Oi Weasley!” came a voice from behind them. Charlie turned around to see Whalen walking over to him.

“Morning Whalen,” Charlie said. “Er, Beatrice, this is Jessica Sloan from the Committee. Sloan this is Beatrice Whalen.”

“Pleasure,” Beatrice said as she shook Sloan’s hand briefly. “Listen Weasley all we have to do today is make sure this Horntail doesn’t kill anyone.” Sloan raised an eyebrow at that. “The research crew wants to run some tests and we have to keep her calm.”

Beatrice said it as if keeping a Hungarian Horntail calm was a simple task. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Beatrice and Charlie really had their work cut out for them. This particular Horntail was named Sabra. She literally used her tail like a saber if anyone tried to get too close to her.

“They probably should have given us some of the interns,” Charlie said to Beatrice as they walked to Sabra’s quarters.

“Stephen Miller nearly wet himself the last time he was working with a Horntail,” Beatrice said with a laugh. Stephen Miller was the least aggressive of all the interns; naturally he was Jake’s favorite. “Sometimes those interns are more of a hindrance than a help.” Charlie groaned inwardly. That comment did not bode well for Sloan’s impression of the interns. He could just picture her describing them in her little notebook. _Interns on the reserve are cowardly and incompetent. They are terrified of the dragons that they are working with._ Jake was right, today was definitely not going to be a good day.

Thankfully, the Horntail was in a good mood. When Charlie and Beatrice arrived on site they realized that Sabra was acting somewhat mellow. Charlie felt instantly relieved. The researchers hadn't arrived yet so Charlie and Beatrice went over to great Sabra. Sloan hung back; she did not want to approach the dragon unless it was absolutely necessary.

“We should feed her breakfast,” Beatrice suggested. Charlie agreed and went over to the storage unit to grab some fresh meat. He tossed the meat up to the dragon. Sabra ate her meal appreciatively.

“Why didn't you chain her up?” Sloan asked him curiously. Charlie was surprised to see that Sloan had approached him by the storage unit.

“Sabra's nowhere near as temperamental as Jamaya. Sabra's one of the older dragons on the reserve so she knows the drill. She knows we're not gonna hurt her or anything so she doesn't try to fight us or take our heads off,” Charlie explained. “Usually.” He added as an afterthought. Sloan nodded, taking all the information in.

“Morning Whalen! Morning Weasley!” a friendly voice called out. Charlie turned around to see where it was coming from. The team of researchers was making their way towards the clearing. The group was led by Dr. Bartlett, the head researcher, and the friendliest one. The researchers had a tendency to be a bit snobbish because they were more advanced in their education than the rest of the people on the reserve. Dr. Bartlett was in no way snobbish. He was one of the nicest men Charlie had ever met. He was in his fifties and seemed so at peace with himself.

“Good morning Dr. Bartlett!” Beatrice called out happily.

“How are you?” Charlie asked smiling.

“Never better. It's not every day you get to study Horntail scales,” Dr. Bartlett replied grinning. Charlie saw that Sloan was watching Dr. Bartlett with interest.

“Oh, sorry Dr. Bartlett this is Jessica Sloan. She's from the Committee,” Charlie remembered himself and introduced Sloan. Much to Charlie's surprise, Dr. Bartlett actually frowned at the mention of Sloan's name.

“Yes I've heard of you,” Dr. Bartlett said to her. Sloan stared back at him defiantly. “You're the one who wrote that paper against the importance of creatures as a basis for medical research.” Sloan nodded her head evenly.

“Co-wrote,” she amended. Charlie looked at her in surprise. He didn't know she was a published anti-dragon advocate. Great, he thought to himself, just another thing that was going to make his job that much more difficult.

“Ah, yes well we all know that moron Roland couldn't have written it all by himself,” Christopher Stevens, another researcher said bitterly. Sloan didn't seem to disagree. She shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

“The ideas were all his I just helped him phrase it,” Sloan informed them.

“But you agree with what was written,” Christopher said in a challenging tone.

“I've yet to be proved otherwise,” Sloan replied evenly.

"Well I think today if everything goes as planned you might experience a change of heart,” Dr. Bartlett said, interrupting their argument.

“What's the plan for today Doc?” Beatrice asked eagerly. She loved working with the researchers. It was always an experience to say the least.

“We just need you two to keep her calm enough to let us get close and take some samples,” Dr. Bartlett explained.

“You don't want us to stun her?” Beatrice wondered curiously. It would make the entire job a lot easier if Charlie and Beatrice just stunned Sabra and let the researchers work while she was unconscious.

“Not yet. If that's what it comes down to I won't stop you,” Dr. Bartlett said, “But we want to see how close she'll let us get.”

“Isn't that a little dangerous?” Sloan asked.

“Of course,” Christopher Stevens said smirking. You don't live on a dragon reserve if you don't like danger. Charlie could see the unspoken motto in Christopher's eyes. Sloan just shook her head as if to say, your funeral.

“So after you get the samples?” Charlie began.

“Ah, yes after we get the scales we wanted to see if the ones scraped off her match the ones that she sheds naturally,” Dr. Bartlett continued. “And also whether or not she lets us take them will be an experiment as well.”

“Well let's get started then,” Beatrice said rubbing her hands together eagerly. Christopher and the other researchers looked just as excited.

“Er, Sloan, maybe you should hang back for the beginning of this one. I know you don't like dragons and I wouldn't want you getting hurt if this experiment were to get out of hand,” Charlie suggested looking over at her. Sloan nodded her head and pulled out her stupid note pad to take some more notes. She was probably going to discredit every experiment ever performed on their reserve.

Charlie, Dr. Bartlett, Beatrice, Christopher, and the other researchers slowly approached Sabra. The dragon was still in her peaceful after meal state. The dragons were the easiest to approach just after they've eaten. Sabra seemed content to just sit and watch the people slowly coming towards her.

“Easy, everyone go slow!” Beatrice warned as Sabra regarded them intently. They eased their way closer to the dragon. Charlie, Christopher, and two other researchers approached Sabra by her head. The plan was to have Beatrice, Dr. Bartlett, and the other researchers go around her back and try to scrape off some scales. Charlie's group would be the distraction. Hopefully Sabra would focus her attention on them, and also feel less threatened, thus allowing Dr. Bartlett's team to collect the scales that they needed for the experiment.

So far so good. Charlie and his group were several yards away from Sabra's head and she seemed to be letting them get closer and closer. Sabra hadn't even noticed Beatrice and the others at her back. Charlie was somewhat thankful that he hadn't been assigned any interns for the day. Chances are one of the interns would have messed up and irritated Sabra. If the dragon got angry Charlie and his group would be the first to get fried.

Charlie led the group until they were only about twenty feet away from Sabra's head. He didn't want to risk them getting any closer. He motioned for them to stop the advance. Charlie hoped Beatrice was taking care of everything around Sabra's back and that dangerous tail. He really didn't feel like getting burned today. Everything seemed to be going well. After about two minutes of just standing in front of Sabra Charlie started to get nervous. He couldn't see what Beatrice and her group were doing and he didn't like standing directly in Sabra's line of fire. Thankfully, a minute later he saw Beatrice emerge giving him the signal to start retreating.

Slowly, and without turning their backs, Charlie's group started to back up away from Sabra. They eventually made it far away enough to turn their backs on the now sleeping dragon. Charlie couldn't help laughing to himself a little. They had taken all those precautions only to have Sabra fall asleep. He shook his head and ran over to Dr. Bartlett to see what his findings were.

Dr. Bartlett looked happy. He proudly opened his clenched fist to reveal several shiny black scales. The other researchers had their own collections of the scales as well. Apparently their little escapade was very successful.

“This is excellent!” Dr. Bartlett said gleefully.

“I can't wait to take these back to the lab and analyze them!” Christopher exclaimed happily.

“Actually, I was thinking we could analyze them here,” Dr. Bartlett said eyeing Sloan who was still standing far off.

“Here?” Christopher wondered.

“Yes,” Dr. Bartlett said lowering his voice, “I want you to show that girl just how wrong she is.” Christopher followed the man's gaze over to Sloan who was watching the group talk with a look of impatience.

“I would love to prove that girl wrong,” Christopher agreed eagerly.

“I want to see Sloan get proved wrong as much as the next guy but I don't know if analyzing them here on site is such a good idea,” Charlie interrupted. His statement was met with several looks of surprise. “It's just, she's going to write a report and she'll think our research technique is inadequate if we don't do it in one of the labs.”

“Weasley is right,” Beatrice nodded in agreement. Dr. Bartlett paused to consider this. He seemed to be weighing his options.

“Alright, we'll do the research in the lab but I'll send someone to fetch you two once we have the results,” Dr. Bartlett concluded.

“Sounds like a plan,” Beatrice nodded. As the researchers started to walk away, Sloan approached Charlie and Beatrice.

“Well, the approach plan worked nicely,” Beatrice commented.

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. To Sloan he said, “The researchers were able to get a sampling of scales. They just went back to the lab to analyze them. They're going to send someone to come get us when they have results.”

“Well that's nice,” Sloan said not really seeming to care. Charlie didn't even know why he bothered trying to be nice to her.

“You suppose we should feed Sabra lunch?” Beatrice wondered.

"I don't want to wake her up,” Charlie said shaking his head. Beatrice checked her watch.

“It's almost noon though,” she countered.

“Maybe we can just leave it out for her,” Charlie suggested. Beatrice nodded and went to go fetch the meat. After leaving Sabra her meal Beatrice, Charlie, and Sloan made their way down to the cafeteria to eat their own meals.

* * *

 

“How did it go?” Jake asked Charlie while on line for lunch.

“Surprisingly well,” Charlie told his friend as they waited for their food. “The researchers got what they needed and Sabra didn't give us any problems.”

“I think she might be getting ready to lay eggs,” Jake commented, “And that's why she's been so calm lately.

“That would explain a lot,” Charlie agreed. “How did everything go with you?”

“Horrible,” Jake sighed miserably.

“Horrible how?” Charlie asked warily.

“I can't stand that Roland guy,” Jake growled. Charlie could have guess as much.

“I'm sorry you got stuck working with him,” Charlie sighed.

“Me too. And the worst part is I think Lea might actually be warming up to him,” Jake added sadly.

“I highly doubt that,” Charlie disagreed. He was pretty sure Lea found Chase Roland to be positively repulsive. The two friends made their way over to the table to find Lea, Chase, and Sloan all having a civil conversation. That in itself was a huge surprise.

"You see what I mean?” Jake muttered angrily.

"How was Sabra?” Lea asked as Charlie sat down with Jake.

“She was so calm. It was weird but in a good way,” Charlie told her.

“That Fireball we worked with was definitely not calm,” Chase commented. “But you handled her so well!”

“Er, thanks,” Lea mumbled. She didn't seem to know what to make of Chase's sudden burst of kindness. Jake looked like he wanted to stab Chase with his fork.

“How was Jamaya?” Charlie asked Jake and Lea.

“The usual. She tried to burn anyone that got within fifty feet of her. So she's going without lunch,” Jake informed them.

“But that's only going to make her even more angry!” Charlie protested. Jake shrugged his shoulders.

“It wasn't my idea. It was Schmidt's orders. Personally, I agree with you Charlie. But Schmidt insists. And he's the boss,” Jake sighed.

“We couldn't do anything about it Charlie,” Lea said with a frown.

“Well you should have at least slipped her a snack,” Charlie said frowning.

“Are you suggesting insubordination?” Chase asked Charlie with a glare.

“No I'm suggesting fair treatment to magical creatures,” Charlie replied instantly.

“I know and I wish I did,” Jake said ignoring Chase. “But I don't think like you Charlie. And it didn't occur to me until I was halfway back to the cafeteria. If I went back Schmidt would have known I was up to something.” Charlie frowned. He would have gone back. He didn't care what Schmidt did. They didn't have the right to starve the dragons just because they weren't cooperating. Sloan and Chase were going to have a field day with this conflict in their reports.

“Hopefully Jamaya learns soon enough,” Lea sighed.

“Starving her isn't going to teach her anything,” Charlie remarked bitterly.

“Charlie I know,” Jake sighed, “But there really isn't anything we can do at this point.”

“Dragons are pretty intelligent. I'm sure Jamaya will learn soon enough,” Lea said hopefully.

“She's a smart girl,” Chase complimented Lea, “You should listen to her.”

“You don't even know what you're talking about!” Jake exclaimed glaring at Chase. Charlie could tell Jake was getting irritated. Irritation and jealously are not a good combination. Charlie made a face at Jake to try and calm him down. Sloan remained silent throughout the whole exchange. She probably couldn't care less what happened to Jamaya or the keepers and the reserve.

“I know a lot more than you think Henderson,” Chase growled.

“Down boy,” Sloan muttered to Chase who looked positively menacing. Apparently he didn't like having his intelligence insulted. Chase and Jake glared daggers at each other. Charlie sighed and Lea looked from one to the other seeming rather distressed.

“They've been at each other's throats all day,” Lea said in a hushed voice to Charlie. “I don't know what Jake's problem is. He's usually so nice to everyone but for some reason he can't stand Chase.” Charlie couldn't believe that Lea didn't know.

“Well, Chase is a jerk and Jake hates jerks. You know how he gets whenever Colin Michaels walks into the room,” Charlie said to her.

“Yeah but I can't help feeling like there's something else,” Lea sighed. Of course there was something else. Jake was in love with her. But of course, Charlie couldn't outright tell Lea that. For as long as Charlie had known Jake Henderson, Jake had been in love with Lea. Ever since they'd first met Lea Jake had been very taken with her. Leah had come to the reserve halfway through their first year as interns.

When Charlie and Jake had been informed that a third intern was going to be added to their team of two they didn't know how to feel. They didn't like the idea of another person messing with their steady partnership. When Charlie and Jake were informed that the third member of their team was to be a girl they were angry. Female dragon keepers don't exactly have the best reputation. But when Charlie and Jake met Lea they changed their minds instantly.

Lea came to their reserve because she hated the Hungarian reserve she used to work on. Lea had been the only female keeper and it made doing her job very difficult. So she transferred to Romania. The Romanian reserve has the highest number of female keepers in the world so Lea knew she would get proper treatment. However, Lea was unlike all of the other female keepers on the reserve. With most female keepers it was hard to tell if they were girls or guys. Instead of being broad, muscular, and masculine Lea was womanly, pretty faced, and lean and athletic looking. It was a nice change.

Jake pretty much fell in love with her a first sight. There was no other way to describe it. Jake took one look at Lea with her freckles and frizzy dirty blond hair and was instantly attracted. Charlie could still remember what he'd first said upon seeing her.

“Merlin Weasley would you take a look at her. That's the prettiest girl I've ever seen,” Jake had exclaimed in a whisper.

“Well then you can't have seen that many gorgeous birds,” Charlie had replied jokingly. Charlie didn't really think Lea was unattractive she just wasn't his type. Which was all the better for Jake. In the first month that they knew each other Jake went out of his way to make life easier for Lea. He would do anything for her. If Lea noticed she didn't say anything about it.

As the months went by Jake only found himself liking Lea more and more. Eventually months turned into years and Jake's feelings for Lea only grew. He loved her and respected her more than anyone else but he would never get up the courage to tell her. So he went on loving her in secret.

Jake and Chase stopped talking to each other and just settled for throwing dirty looks across the table. The whole thing made Charlie feel rather uncomfortable. It was hard enough for him to talk to Sloan and now there was the added tension of Chase and Jake. Lea tried to be gracious about the whole thing but it was obvious that she was getting frustrated. Thankfully Charlie was saved the agony of sitting through the rest of the meal when Christopher Stevens came running over to his table.

“Weasley!” he yelled excitedly. “Find Whalen and come with me! We have the results!” Charlie jumped out of his chair and in his excitement almost forgot to wait for Sloan. She probably wouldn't have come if he hadn't practically pulled her out of the chair. Charlie located Beatrice's table and they were gone within moments.

“So the results are good?” Beatrice asked Christopher as they practically ran to the lab.

“You'll see when we get there,” Christopher told them. But judging from the look on his face the results were definitely going to be good. Christopher slowed his pace once they were inside the lab building. They walked cautiously down the hall and entered the room on the far right.

“Ah, so glad you could make it,” Dr. Bartlett said when he noticed their arrival. He was by a large silver instrument that Charlie had never seen before. He didn't get a chance to go inside the labs very often.

“So what are the results?” Beatrice asked anxiously. She was clearly very excited. Charlie too was feeling the energy in the atmosphere. Only Sloan kept an uninterested expression.

“Come take a look for yourself,” Dr. Bartlett said motioning for them to join him over by the silver tool. Charlie, Beatrice, and Sloan all walked over to where Dr. Bartlett was standing. “Look through here,” Dr. Bartlett showed them where to look on the instrument. Beatrice went first and examined their findings.

“I don't really understand,” she said taking a step back to allow Charlie a turn. Charlie squinted through the eyepiece. All he saw was Sabra's scale magnified in the lens. But instead of the usual black color it was shining a light silver.

“You see the silver?” Dr. Bartlett asked as Charlie stepped back and motioned for Sloan to look at it. She bent down to examine the scale.

"Yes,” Charlie and Beatrice said together.

“That's a special chemical produced by the dragon to help maintain her body temperature,” Sloan surprised everyone by explaining it. Charlie looked at her, openly shocked by her knowledge. Christopher raised an eyebrow and Sloan just shrugged.

“Yes, yes it is,” Dr. Bartlett said clapping his hands together eagerly. “And as far as we know that's all it does. But my team has been working in the lab with a rather ill sphinx.”

“So you think that chemical can help heal the sphinx?” Beatrice asked.

“We know it can,” Christopher said gleefully. “We just tested it out an hour ago.”

“And the sphinx healed in an hour?” Sloan asked skeptically.

“Take another look at the scale,” Dr. Bartlett instructed her. “Do you see the way that chemical has stuck to the underside?” Sloan nodded her head. “It has remarkable staying powers but it doesn't really enter the bloodstream of the dragon it just stays on the surface. So when applied to the surface of the sphinx the effect was minimal. But when we injected it into the bloodstream the effect was instantaneous.”

“And the dragon keeps in on the surface to avoid quick body temperature changes,” Sloan observed. Charlie was immensely impressed by her vast knowledge of such a topic.

“Exactly!” Dr. Bartlett exclaimed.

“What exactly was this sphinx ill with?” Sloan wanted to know.

“Some viral infection,” Christopher said offhandedly. “It doesn't really matter. The point is this chemical didn't heal the sphinx it just accelerated the process.” Sloan nodded as if that actually made sense to her.

“Then what was the point of collecting the scales that had fallen off?” Sloan wanted to know.

“Ah,” Dr. Bartlett said motioning for Sloan to follow him. She did, and this time she looked rather interested. “We needed a control. Take a look at that scale.” Sloan examined the one he was pointing to.

"It doesn't have the iotrate,” she observed. The fact that Sloan knew the name of the chemical seemed to momentarily stun everyone except for Dr. Bartlett.

"Yes, and that's because that scale was taken off the ground, not off of Sabra,” he explained.

“So that means you can only get the iotrate harvested off of a live dragon,” Sloan muttered. “Isn't that going to cause some issues for the industry?”

“Yes, that's what I said,” Dr. Bartlett began before Christopher interrupted him.

“But the iotrate can accelerate healing processes caused by non magical means. Don't you see what this means?! We could potentially market this in the muggle world!”

"No,” Sloan said shaking her head. “That would be catastrophic.”

“That's what I said,” Dr. Bartlett agreed. “We cannot under any circumstances market the iotrate to the muggles. Besides the chemical still needs more testing before we can even introduce it to the medical departments. For now we must be happy with this small amount of success.” It was obvious Christopher was not happy with just that one small success but he kept his mouth shut.

“Is this iotrate thing found on all dragons or just Horntails?” Beatrice wondered.

“Just Horntails,” Dr. Bartlett, Christopher, and Sloan all said at the same time.

“How do you know so much about this?” Christopher asked Sloan. She just shrugged her shoulders and brushed him off but Charlie knew there was more where that came from. Charlie was completely taken aback by the fact that Sloan knew so much about dragons. She knew more than he did in the scientific field!

“I'm so happy your tests were successful Doc,” Beatrice said to Dr. Bartlett with a smile.

“Me too,” Charlie added.

“But we should really getting back out to the fields and get Sabra her dinner,” Beatrice sighed. Charlie nodded.

“Yes, alright,” Dr. Bartlett waved goodbye to them. “I'll keep you updated.” Beatrice and Charlie turned to leave the lab. Sloan followed them, albeit rather reluctantly. If Charlie had known she knew so much about the scientific aspect of dragons he would have taken her to see the labs much earlier. He probably would have known that if he'd bothered to read the packet Schmidt gave him before Sloan got here. Charlie made a mental note to find the packet and read it over. 

* * *

 

After they'd made their visit to Sabra Charlie and Sloan checked back in on the lab. Dr. Bartlett smiled knowingly when he saw Sloan enter the room. This time she seemed about ten times happier to be there. The lab seemed to be in full on research mode. No one was standing around idly. Even Christopher was settled behind a station conducting some experiment.

“How's the sphinx?” Charlie asked.

“Even better than she was before,” Dr. Bartlett told them.

“Aren't you worried that she's going to heal too well?” Sloan wondered.

“How can you heal too well?” Charlie asked. That idea didn't quite make sense to him.

“Have you ever taken too much of a pepper-up potion?” Sloan asked him. Charlie laughed. One time his mother had been extremely worried when he came down with a cold. She gave him a bit more than the required dose. He was on an energy high all day. His mom had to put a temporary sticking charm on him to get him to sit down long enough to eat dinner.

“Oh I can see why that would be bad,” Charlie realized.

“I was worried about that initially but we just followed the measurement of an injection of anything else and that seemed to work,” Dr. Bartlett informed them.

“What are you going to do next?” Sloan asked him interestedly.

“Test on other creatures who are ill, with their owners’ permission of course. I'm rather hesitant to test on humans. We're going to wait it out and see how everything goes with the creatures first,” Dr. Bartlett seemed to have a lot of excellent ideas. Charlie glanced at Sloan and he could tell how fascinated she was by all of this. At least she would write a good review about the research facilities. That was a bonus.

“If this is successful what are your plans for distribution?” Sloan asked him inquisitively.

“Well we'll have to find out exactly which diseases the iotrate helps with. And then I think we're going to stick with hospital distribution. Definitely not over the counter,” Dr. Bartlett detailed his plans. Sloan nodded in agreement but Charlie wasn't satisfied.

“And what exactly do you plan to do to help preserve the rights of the Horntails? Once people find out that their scales have these properties they are going to try and get them. And since the scales have to be removed live that's going to cause a lot of problems in the illegal trafficking market. How are you going to preserve the Horntails?” Charlie demanded to know.

“We're going to have to regulate the harvesting of the scales,” Dr. Bartlett mused, “Set a standard number for how many can be taken from one dragon and how many times.” Charlie nodded and waited for more.

“You could set a ban on who get's to do the harvesting. Require a license,” Sloan suggested. Charlie was surprised to hear her input. It didn't make sense that she would want to help protect the rights of the Horntails. She hated magical creatures.

“How do you know so much about dragons?” Charlie asked Sloan on their way back to Tent City for the night.

“I studied magical creatures in school,” Sloan said with a shrug. “It was a requirement to become part of the Department.”

“Yeah, but Chase doesn't know half as much as you do,” Charlie pointed out. “And you two must have taken similar classes.”

“Yes, well Chase is a little intellectually challenged,” Sloan said as Charlie laughed lightly. He was surprised to hear her joke about him like that. He found when she wasn't being all tense and uptight Sloan was really easy to get along with.

“Seriously how come you know so much?” Charlie wanted to know. It didn't make sense that a self-professed dragon hater would know so much about the species.

“I just read a lot. I get interested in what I study. I invest a lot more time in studying than most other people,” Sloan told him. “I don't really consider myself to know that much.”

“I think you know a lot,” Charlie mumbled more to himself. 

* * *

 

Now that they'd sort of bonded over the research experiment Charlie half expected Sloan to warm up to him at least a little bit. But of course, she remained stubbornly cold and professional. It seemed like he was the only one having trouble breaking through with his representative. Chase was clearly warming up to Lea and Rob and Eric were on their way to becoming best friends.

“Maybe she just doesn't like you,” Jake suggested when Charlie complained to him. Charlie had actually considered that but it still didn't make sense. He'd get her to open up and talk honestly to him and then an hour later it was as if their discussions had never happened.

“I don't know. I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong,” Charlie sighed.

“I'm beginning to think she's not capable of relaxing. I've never even seen her without those stupid business clothes or that ridiculously tight bun,” Lea observed.

“Maybe she's just really uptight,” Jake added. Nevertheless Charlie was extremely frustrated.

 


	4. Norberta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie starts to see Sloan differently as she starts becoming more acclimated to life on the reserve.

Over the next week Charlie grew increasingly agitated. Everyone else was getting along so well with their reps. Eric and Robert were practically inseparable. Rob even seemed to be embracing the way of life on the reserve. Sometimes when Charlie saw Rob he thought the guy was just another keeper. Chase didn't like life on the reserve that much but he clearly liked Lea. It was obvious that he was very fond of her. Lea would have no trouble weaseling a good evaluation out of him. Charlie was the only one who couldn't get his rep to warm up to him. He was starting to think that maybe it was just impossible. Jessica Sloan just wasn't capable of warming up to anyone.

Charlie thought maybe he was part of the problem. He couldn't see Sloan as anyone except for an uptight, cold, and unpleasant person. He had this picture of her cemented in his mind. He couldn't see her as being anything else. But then one night, all that changed.

He was sitting in the common room with Jake and Lea before they headed off to bed. The three of them were just sitting around and talking about their days. Charlie had worked with a boring Swedish Shortsnout, Jake had been with Sabra all day, and Lea had struggled through life with Jamaya. The three friends were exchanging stories about their dragons when Sloan walked in. She had been in her room before and she'd come out to read a book but she'd spotted Rob and Chase so she settled down with them. Charlie couldn't help but stare at her.

She just looked so different. Maybe it was the fact that she was in her pajamas and not her usual get up. Sloan was just wearing an old t-shirt with sweatpants. But the biggest and most noticeable change was that she had let her hair down. Sloan had forgone her trademark tight bun and her hair cascaded down her back in loose waves. She looked remarkably different; like another person entirely.

“Charlie what are you looking at?” Jake asked noticing Charlie's temporary trance.

“What, er nothing,” he said hastily turning back to face his friends. But it was too late. They'd followed his gaze to where it had previously been focused.

“Why were you staring at Sloan?” asked Jake with a laugh.

“I don't know, I just thought she looked different,” Charlie mumbled as he began to blush. Getting caught staring at Sloan was highly embarrassing.

“She does look different,” Lea acknowledged fixing Charlie with an odd look.

“Yeah, more like a normal person,” Jake added. Charlie shook his head, unable to stop his gaze from wondering over to her.

“Do you need to leave the room?” Jake joked. That only caused him to blush even deeper.

“No,” he mumbled feeling his cheeks flame. Charlie forced himself to focus on his conversation with Lea and Jake but every so often he found himself glancing over at Sloan just to make sure he hadn't just imagined her looking so different. But there she was, relaxed, hair down, and laughing with her brother and Chase.

* * *

 

The next morning at breakfast Sloan reverted back to her usual attire but Charlie couldn't shake the image of her from last night out of his head. He observed her in what he thought was an inconspicuous way but when she and Chase got up to throw out their garbage Jake accosted him.

“Dude what is with all the staring?” Jake wanted to know.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Charlie denied it. Lea sighed and shook her head as if to say _stupid boys._

“What?” Jake asked looking at her.

“Ugh! Isn't it obvious? Charlie thinks Sloan is attractive!” Lea laughed.

“What?” sputtered Charlie in shock. Lea was clearly imagining things.

“Charlie you've been staring at her non stop for the past twelve hours,” Lea pointed out. Jake nodded his head in agreement.

“She's not bad looking,” Jake observed. “Just not my type,” he added with a hasty look over at Lea.

“I don't think she's attractive. There is nothing attractive about being uptight and tense,” Charlie protested. He did not like the direction in which this conversation was headed. So what if he stared at her? That didn’t mean he thought she was attractive.

“You definitely thought she was attractive last night,” Jake insisted. Lea nodded her agreement.

“No she just looked different,” Charlie said shaking his head.

“And what you really mean to say is that you were surprised by how attractive you found her,” Lea argued. Both Jake and Lea were smirking at him. Charlie was growing infuriated with the pair of them.

“I'm not having this argument,” Charlie muttered as Chase and Sloan came back. Charlie looked up at her. There was no way he was attracted to her. He couldn't deny that she was pretty but he didn't find her that attractive. Well, she was attractive when she wasn't being uptight but that was only about ten percent of the time. Charlie shook his head and sighed to himself. This was the last thing he needed to be thinking about. He should just forget that the conversation ever happened. He couldn't afford to have himself getting distracted when they were about to work with dragons.

His assignment this time was a Norwegian Ridgeback he'd actually helped bring to the reserve. One of the teachers at Hogwarts, the former gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid, had stumbled across a dragon egg. Hagrid had hatched the egg in his small hut on the school grounds. It’s extremely illegal to be in possession of a dragon egg so Charlie’s younger brother Ron had written to Charlie. Ron asked for Charlie’s help it getting the dragon out of Hogwarts without anyone knowing Hagrid had ever been in possession of one. Lea and Jake had flown out to England on business and brought the dragon back to the reserve so that Hagrid wouldn't get in trouble. Hagrid, in a moment of sentimentality, had named the dragon Norbert. Charlie, Jake, and Lea were all rather fond of Norbert.

Although, now that he thought about it, Charlie wouldn't really need all of his concentration this morning. For the past week Norbert had been acting extremely calm. All of the keepers that worked with him made the same report. They all said he was acting remarkably calm, which was a stark contrast to his previous bout of viciousness. Colin Michaels had even gone as far as to suggest that Norbert might be sick.

When they got to Norbert's quarters Charlie tried to feed him breakfast but Norbert didn't feel like eating. He sniffed the meat for a long time before going back to sit down.

"What's wrong with him?” asked Rex, the intern assigned to Charlie for the day.

“Honestly, I don't really know. Norbert's never been like this. He usually eats too much if anything. And he's so calm. I don't really know,” Charlie admitted. Sloan regarded all of this with a passive expression. Charlie half expected her to pull out the notepad and write about how incompetent the keepers were because they couldn't figure out what was wrong with their dragons. But she just watched Norbert with a curious expression.

Norbert wouldn't eat his lunch either. Charlie's stomach was growling and he knew he had to take Sloan back to the cafeteria but he didn't want to leave Norbert alone. Something could be really wrong and he didn't want Norbert to go unattended. Charlie saw Rex check his watch, which reminded Charlie of the time. It was already noon. He sighed and sat down on an overly large rock.

“Rex you can head back if you want. I just don't feel right leaving Norbert alone like this,” Charlie said to the boy. Rex looked pointedly at Sloan.

“And er, Sloan you can go with him if you want to,” Charlie added. Rex glared at Charlie over Sloan's shoulder. Apparently he didn't want to spend any more time with Sloan than he had to. Whether she noticed Rex's glaring, Sloan didn't let on. She just shrugged her shoulders and sat down next to Charlie on the boulder.

“It’s all right. If you’re going to stay I’ll stay too,” she said simply. Rex looked surprised but didn't say anything about it.

“I'll bring you both back some food,” he told them as he left.

“You don't have to stay just because I am,” Charlie told her.

"I know,” Sloan said leaning back on her hands. She was watching Norbert and if Charlie didn't know how much she disliked dragons he would have thought she was concerned. For a while neither of them said anything; they just sat in silence. It wasn't totally uncomfortable yet Charlie was uneasy. He was internally debating whether or not he really thought Sloan was attractive. He had nothing else to do with his time.

“Hey Weasley?” Sloan said breaking Charlie from his thoughts.

“Yeah,” he said in response.

“Norbert is acting a lot like Sabra was on the day she laid her eggs,” Sloan observed. Charlie thought back to last week when he worked with Sabra. She had been in the process of laying her eggs so naturally she'd been calm and refused to eat anything. Norbert was acting a lot like Sabra now that he thought about it.

“You don't think,” Charlie began hesitantly.

“That Norbert is actually a Norberta? Yeah, I do,” Sloan answered.

“But that's just—Norbert's been here ever since Jake and Lea picked him up three years ago and he's never,” Charlie broke off deep in thought. They didn’t actually know a lot about Norbert’s parentage. He was obviously a Norwegian Ridgeback but they didn’t know much else. They didn’t have the benefits of knowing what dragons spawned Norbert. The fact that Norbert was brought to the reserve at a young age and brought up in his early days but someone who wasn’t a professional…Charlie’s internal pondering was interrupted by Sloan.

“Norbert was brought here?” Sloan asked. Charlie nodded. “So that means you guys didn't actually gender test?” Again Charlie nodded his head. “You just trusted the word of the previous owner?” Charlie sighed trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Sloan might have solved yet another problem on the reserve. “So he could actually be a she.” Sloan looked extremely confident that she was right. As much as Charlie hated to admit it, she probably was right.

“Well, there's only one way to find out,” Charlie said. “If he—she really is laying eggs we can't do the test right now but we can check at the end of the day and see if she's got eggs.”

“So we stay here all day?” Sloan wondered.

“You don't have to but I think I will,” Charlie told her with a shrug.

“Okay then I will too,” Sloan concluded. Charlie reclined further on the rock and closed his eyes. He felt the warmth from the sun heating his face. It was extremely relaxing. He stayed like that for quite some time. When he opened his eyes again he saw Rex on his way back with two trays of food. Sloan and Charlie greeted him appreciatively. As they ate their sandwiches they explained the Norberta theory.

“So you think he's a girl?” Rex asked when Sloan was done explaining her theory.

“It makes sense,” Sloan insisted.

“It does make a lot of sense,” Rex said rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“It would explain why he—she's been acting so calm,” Charlie added. “I just can't believe we didn't realize it before.”

“Well we had no reason to suspect that he wasn't a he,” Rex laughed.

“A gender test would have told us that,” Charlie sighed wishing they had thought to do one when Norbert—Norberta had first arrived.

“Yeah but why would we gender test if the previous owner says it's a male,” Rex countered. “We probably wouldn't have found out if it wasn't for the eggs.” Charlie groaned. All this talk was not helping with Sloan's impression of the reserve. She was probably gearing up to write all about how the keepers can't even tell the males apart from the females. At this rate she could probably shut down the reserve in a week.

“It's an honest mistake,” Sloan said surprising Charlie. Rex nodded his head in agreement. They watched Norbert who didn't move from his—her position all day. The dragon was content to just sit all day. It was typical behavior for a dragon about to lay eggs. Charlie couldn't believe that Norbert might actually be Norberta. It was too much to handle. Between Sloan's transformation last night and now this he was actually going to lose his mind.

“Are you going to stay here all day?” Rex asked Charlie and Sloan.

“Until dusk,” Sloan told him. Charlie knew he shouldn't be surprised yet he was slightly impressed to hear that Sloan knew the time of day dragons usually lay their eggs.

“You don't have to,” Charlie said to the intern.

“I'll bring you back some dinner,” Rex said as he left. Charlie could have sworn he saw Sloan roll her eyes at Rex’s back.

“Some intern,” she muttered. Charlie laughed lightly.

“He’s not always this irritable,” Charlie put in. Rex was prone to mood swings. Some days he was an excellent help on the reserve and others he was just an annoyance.

“He doesn’t seem to want to help out much,” Sloan observed. Charlie guessed that Rex’s less than helpful attitude was due to Sloan’s presence but he didn’t want to tell her that so he just kept silent.

“So who was Norbert’s previous owner?” Sloan asked. Charlie was surprised that she was taking such an interest.

“One of my teachers back at school. The gamekeeper stumbled upon an egg. I’m not quite sure how exactly he came across the egg. But once it hatched my little brother wrote me and asked to help get the dragon to the reserve,” Charlie explained. He smiled a bit at the memory of Ron’s letter. Sloan nodded; she was clearly deep in thought.

"You have a lot of little brothers,” she commented. Charlie remembered Sloan staring at the picture or his family on his door. She had seemed fascinated with it at the moment. But maybe she was just in awe that such a huge family could exist.

“Yeah, four…an older brother too. And a little sister,” Charlie said with a shrug.

“It must be nice,” she added thoughtfully. Charlie remembered her saying that she’d grown up without a family. That must have been why she looked at his picture for so long. The only family Sloan knew was her twin brother Robert.

All around them night was beginning to fall. The sun was setting and a cool breeze perused the air. Charlie spotted a couple of fireflies dancing off in the distance and the crickets began their chirping. Suddenly a silhouette appeared on the horizon. It was Rex. Finally on his way back with some dinner.

“Sorry it took me so long,” Rex mumbled as he got closer to them. Charlie didn’t think Rex looked very sorry at all. Rex handed Charlie and Sloan each a plate of food. The two of them began to eat eagerly. When Charlie looked up form his plate the sun was about to settle down for the night. He saw Sloan watching it sink on the horizon while Rex stared off into space. Watching the sunset was rather peaceful.

“So how long does this egg laying thing take?” Rex asked loudly, completely shattering the peace. Sloan threw a dark look at him.

“It varies. An hour minimum,” Charlie informed the intern. Rex groaned.

“What is your problem?” Sloan asked him suddenly. “Are you too tired to do your job? Do you even want to be here on the reserve? What is so terrible that you can’t even sit with a dragon laying her eggs?!” Rex looked rather taken aback. Charlie didn’t know where her little outburst had come from. He was just as shocked as Rex.

“I—there—nothing,” Rex mumbled. He couldn’t seem to formulate a response. Sloan looked at him expectantly. Rex cast a helpless glance at Charlie but Charlie wanted to hear what the guy would say.

“Well?” Charlie asked. “We’re waiting.” Rex was at a complete loss. He mumbled something about being tired from working overtime last night. Sloan rolled her eyes at him but she let it go. Charlie just shook his head.

“Get your shit together Rex,” Charlie said to him authoritatively. Rex didn’t say much more after that.

Twilight had settled in before the dragon started showing any signs of discomfort. Norbert or Norberta began to make sounds of discontent. Charlie recognized them as some form of labor pains. He couldn’t believe Norbert was actually a girl—laying eggs and everything. Hagrid was going to freak out, Charlie thought.

“It’s starting,” Charlie told the other two. Slowly the three began to move closer to where Norberta was laying down. She didn’t look very happy. But then again no dragon was particularly thrilled to squeeze eggs out of themselves.

“She doesn’t look like she’s enjoying it very much,” Sloan observed.

After about fifteen minutes the first egg appeared. It was rather large and jet-black. Charlie had seen a lot of dragon eggs in his lifetime but he was still fascinated by them. It was hard to imagine that there was a tiny dragon living inside of them. Sloan and Rex were both equally intrigued. Both of their gazes were locked on the egg in Norberta’s nest.

“So he’s definitely a she,” Rex observed. Charlie nodded. Sloan had a somewhat triumphant grin on her face. She was after all, the one who had figured out that Norberta was laying eggs. If Charlie didn’t know any better he would have attributed her vast knowledge of dragons to a hobby. However Sloan despised the creatures, she was just very smart. Charlie was rather envious. He knew that many keepers would pay to have a mind like Sloan’s.

The egg laying was rather quick by egg laying standards. After an hour and a half the entire process was over. Norberta was now sitting in her nest in a protective position. She wasn’t going to let anyone get near those eggs. Charlie fed her some meat, which she accepted eagerly after a day of not eating. After that he, Sloan, and Rex made their way back to the tents.

Rex parted from the pair of them all too eagerly. Charlie watched as the guy practically sprinted to the interns’ tent. At least Rex got some really useful first hand experience out of today. Not many interns got to witness an egg laying in their first months. It was a rather invaluable experience.

“That was pretty incredible,” Sloan said to Charlie when they were heading back to their tent. It was pitch black out and the only light came from the random bursts the reserve liked to keep alight.

“It never gets old,” Charlie assured her.

“Those eggs were huge,” she recalled.

“Believe it or not, I’ve seen bigger,” he told her. Horntails had massive eggs.

“That’s ridiculous,” Sloan said shaking her head. Charlie laughed at her disbelief. Eventually they got to the tent and went their separate ways. They’d gotten along quite nicely during the day but Charlie feared that Sloan would revert back to her usual cold shoulder method the next morning.

* * *

 

Because they’d had such a late night Schmidt gave them an easy assignment for the next day. Charlie’s only job was to monitor and observe Norberta and the new eggs. He was grateful because both he and Sloan were exhausted from having stayed up so late the previous night.

“I can’t believe Norbert is a Norberta!” Jake exclaimed the next morning at breakfast. Charlie was writing a quick letter to tell Hagrid about his former pet and Jake was reading over his shoulder.

“Norbert’s a girl?” Lea asked in surprise.

“Laid eggs just last night,” Charlie told them both. He laughed at the incredulous expressions on their faces. He could only imagine what Hagird’s reaction would be like. Shock and awe would definitely be involved.

“After all this time and we never knew,” Jake sighed shaking his head. He still seemed to find it humorous.

“Norbert’s a girl,” Lea repeated thoughtfully.

“Norbert’s a girl,” Charlie affirmed. He scribbled a closing to the letter and went to hunt down Lea’s owl. After sending Hagrid’s letter Charlie went back to the cafeteria and found Sloan. The two of them slowly made their way to Norberta’s quarters.

“How often do your dragons lay eggs?” Sloan asked Charlie during their walk. Charlie was surprised that she was talking to him. Sloan usually applied an evasion technique where he was concerned.

“It’s pretty rare. I mean obviously mating season is in the summer but we try to keep the dragons separate then. You could imagine how crowded this reserve would get it all of the dragons were mating,” Charlie explained. Sloan nodded her head thoughtfully.

When they got to Norbert—Norberta’s quarters she was sleeping while happily guarding her new eggs. Schmidt had agreed to the name change from Norbert to Norberta. He’d also issued some gender testing to be done on the dragons that they weren’t one hundred percent sure of. Once they observed that everything was fine with Norberta Charlie left her some food and they headed back to the cafeteria for lunch.

They were earlier than everyone else because they’d received such an easy assignment. There was still an hour before lunch officially started. That made Charlie nervous. How was he going to entertain Sloan for an hour?

“Have you talked to Dr. Bartlett lately?” Sloan asked him as they passed the office buildings.

“Not since we saw him last,” Charlie said shaking his head.

“He works in here?” Sloan asked, motioning to the building coming up on their left. Charlie nodded his head.  “Would he be in there now?”

“Er, most likely. Do you want to stop in and see?” Charlie offered. He wasn’t sure why she wanted to talk to Doc so bad but he wasn’t about to argue. It would give them something to do. Personally, Charlie would have been fine with just taking a nap but he didn’t think Sloan would approve of sleeping on the job.

“Sure,” she replied happily.

She even led the way into the building. Sure enough Dr. Bartlett and his team was in the lab conducting some experiment. Christopher looked up when they walked in. Charlie half expected him to shoot them a glare and demand they get out. One time Jake and Charlie had walked in during the researchers’ work and were ushered out by an irritated Chris. Chris was about to say something but then he noticed Sloan with Charlie and his entire countenance changed. Charlie couldn’t believe that she had made such an impression on Chris.

“Jessica come here and take a look at this!” Dr. Bartlett said when he looked up and saw Sloan. She went over eagerly and examined whatever was under the microscope. Charlie was in shock. Half the time he couldn’t stand Sloan and these people seemed to love her. He guessed she’d made quite the impression when she helped them out with their lab work the other day.

“That’s very interesting,” Sloan muttered while still getting a closer look.

“What do you think?” Chris asked her. She began to give him her opinion using a lot of scientific words that Charlie didn’t quite understand. Noticing a chair off in the corner Charlie sat down, leaned his head up against the wall, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep. Sloan would be fine with Bartlett and the other researchers.

“Time for lunch Weasley,” Sloan said giving him a slight nudge. Charlie woke with a start. Apparently he’d been more tired than he thought. He didn’t like the way she was smirking at him either. She was probably thinking about her next report. _Keepers are lazy and often fall asleep when they’re not given a specific task._ Charlie shuddered at the thought.

Lunch was surprisingly painless. Charlie, Jake, and Lea were all able to talk about their day without rude interruption from Chase or Sloan. The two of them were immersed in their own conversation. After the meal was over Charlie and Sloan headed back off to see Norberta.

Charlie was pleased to see that the dragon had eaten the lunch they’d left her. She was wide-awake when they returned. Norberta had fixed her wary gaze on the pair of them. Charlie noticed how Sloan hung back hesitantly. She didn’t like dealing with awake dragons very much.

There wasn’t much to do so they went back to the main camp early. Apparently they weren’t the only ones who had an easy day. Lea, Jake, and Chase were sitting outside the keeper tent just talking. Well, more like Jake and Lea were talking while Chase sat off to the side glowering. Charlie and Sloan joined them and Sloan went over to talk to Chase who looked pretty irritated. Charlie joined his two friends who were talking happily.

“Let’s do something,” Lea said after about ten minutes. “It’s so nice out and I’m bored.” She sighed.

“Well what do you wanna do?” Jake asked looking around as if an idea of what to do would appear out of thin air. As they were discussing this, Eric, Colin, and Rob appeared, also having come back slightly early.

“We could pay Quidditch,” Charlie suggested once it seemed that there were enough people to start a limited game.

“So you can kick our asses again?” Jake asked laughing.

Charlie shrugged grinning. It wasn’t his fault he’d been good at Quidditch in school. He’d always known he was good. He even got an offer to play for the England international team after he’d graduated but Charlie’s true passion was dragons, not catching snitches.

“Weasley can’t be _that_ good,” Chase said shaking his head.

“You’d be surprised,” Lea put in.

“Let’s see then,” Chase said getting up. There was a competitive gleam in his eyes. It was a challenge.

“Alright then,” Charlie said. Lea went into the main tent and grabbed some spare brooms. Jake got their own out of their tent.

“Me, Charlie, Sloan, and,” Jake paused as he tried to divide the group evenly, “Michaels,” he finally said.

“Sounds good,” Lea said going over to join Chase, Rob, and Eric.

“The usual rules?” Eric asked. Jake and Charlie nodded their heads.

“What are the usual rules?” Rob wanted to know.

“One keeper, two chasers, one seeker—no bludgers,” Charlie explained.

They all mounted their brooms. Colin and Eric flew to their respective spots as the designated keepers whenever the reserve played a pick up game of Quidditch. Lea, Rob, Sloan, and Jake all took the role of Chaser and Charlie and Chase were the seekers.

“Everyone ready?” Jake asked.

There was a collective murmur of agreement. Jake flew down to the ground released the quaffle and the snitch. Charlie immediately began to focus on the tiny golden ball but as usual it vanished from sight as soon as the game began.

While scanning the fields for a sign of the small glittering ball Charlie observed the game. He was mildly impressed with Sloan’s skills on a broom. He never would have pegged her for the Quidditch type but she seemed to be doing just fine. Sloan and Jake were clearly dominating over Rob and Lea. Eventually Charlie caught sight of the snitch and made a quick, easy capture. He was pretty sure Chase never even spotted the ball. Chase claimed the sun was in his eyes.

“Haha did you see the look on that guy’s face when you caught it?” Jake asked Charlie triumphantly. Jake was grinning ear to ear at having beaten Chase.

“He couldn’t believe it,” Lea agreed running up to them. She was in a good mood despite having lost the game. She wasn’t exactly a Quidditch fanatic.

“Did you see Sloan out there?” Jake asked the two of them. “I never would have guessed she could play.”

“Me either,” Lea replied laughing. Charlie nodded his head in agreement.  

“That was fun. Charlie, Quidditch was a good suggestion,” Sloan said to him when she joined the three friends.

Lea and Jake exchanged incredulous looks. Charlie was just as shocked as his friends. He couldn’t believe that she’d used his first name. It was like an unspoken rule that they referred to each other by their last names. Jake, the most friendly, recovered the quickest.

“Yeah but your friend doesn’t seem to agree,” he said motioning to Chase who was trailing behind the group with a scowl on his face.

“Chase is a sore loser,” Sloan said dismissively.

“Are you two good friends?” Lea inquired. Sloan paused thoughtfully.

“No not really. Just colleagues. Rob doesn’t like him very much but we tolerate him when we have to. It’s kind of like babysitting sometimes,” she added in a joking manner. Lea laughed appreciatively.

“He doesn’t seem very thrilled with being here on the reserve,” Jake added.

“None of us were at first,” Sloan admitted.

“And now?” Charlie asked, speaking up for the first time.

“It’s growing on me,” She said with a smile in his direction. Charlie couldn’t help grinning back. She looked pretty when she smiled like that, Charlie thought. Maybe he’d have to start calling her Jessica.


	5. Lea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as Charlie and Jessica's friendship truly starts to blossom tensions boil over between Chase, Jake, and Lea threatening life on the reserve as they know it.

Work became much easier once it was established that Charlie and Jessica were friends. She lightened up and was often more of help than the interns. Charlie was able to spend more time with Lea and Jake too, now that Jessica wasn’t lashing out at everyone. Though Charlie couldn’t help but notice that even though she’d warmed up to him and life on the reserve Jessica still didn’t like dragons. It was true she had a soft spot for Norberta and Sabra both of whom she’d studied with Dr. Bartlett’s teams, however, whenever they worked with dragons like Jamaya or Marius, the Longhorn they had on the reserve, Jessica would revert to her old ways.

It was frustrating to Charlie. Some days he felt like he and Jessica were getting along well and making real strides in their relationship and others he just didn’t understand her at all. Jake said all women were like that but Charlie knew that there was something different in this situation. There was something that was really bothering Jessica. He wanted to know what it was.

One day after they’d eaten dinner Charlie decided to try and broach the subject. He was sitting outside of the keeper tent with Jessica. It was just the two of them talking and laughing. Their friendship was really progressing and Charlie figured he might as well ask her.

“Why did you decide to work for the Department?” Charlie asked her. Jessica’s countenance darkened visibly.

“It’s a long story,” she sighed staring at the grass.

“We’ve got some time,” Charlie told her.

“I don’t think you want to hear it,” Jessica said shaking her head.

“I do—only if you want to tell me,” Charlie offered.

“Alright,” Jessica agreed, “but you’re not going to like it.”

Her warning made Charlie feel a bit uneasy but he tried not to let on.

“Rob and I weren’t always orphans. We used to live with our parents in a village in the Welsh countryside. The village was small and poor. We didn’t have a lot of money but we were happy. Then one day everything changed. Our village was attacked by fire. At first we were all confused. No one knew where the fire had come from. It was chaotic. Everyone went running in different directions. Once we got outside we were able to see that the fire was coming from a dragon. I took Rob and we got the hell out of there. But our parents never made it. Rob’s still got some burn scars. I don’t know for sure but I’m pretty sure we’re the only survivors from the attack. Rob and I joined the Department because we wanted to make sure that attacks like that would never happen again.”

“Oh my god Jessica, I’m sorry. That’s awful,” Charlie said at the conclusion of her story. She nodded quietly. He was almost regretting having asked.

“I think we were about eight and from there were somehow got to England and spent some time in an orphanage there. Eventually we got to France and went to actual school. I’d never even held a wand until I was fifteen. I didn’t really need it by then,” Jessica added with a laugh. “Rob and I learned how to do magic by hand.”

“That’s incredible,” Charlie acknowledged, deeply impressed. Other than Dumbledore Charlie had never met someone who could do wandless magic. Jessica just shrugged her shoulders. There was so much to her life that Charlie didn’t know. He found that he wanted to find out.

“Jess, you know not all dragons are like that,” Charlie said hesitantly.

“Aren’t they?” she asked in a strained voice. Clearly the attack had a huge impact on her. It must have been pretty traumatizing.

“No. You know they’re not. Whether you want to admit it or not you know it’s true. You’ve met some amazing creatures here. I see the way you look at Norberta,” Charlie reminded her.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Jessica admitted shaking her head. Charlie could tell it was hard for her to talk about but he didn’t think she didn’t want to. It seemed like she wanted to talk about it with someone but just didn’t know who to talk to.

“Rob’s lucky. He doesn’t remember any of it. He was unconscious for half of it anyway. I couldn’t forget it even if I tried. And it’s just everything in my life has always led me to believe one thing—and then I come here and everything changes,” Jessica tried to explain. Charlie didn’t quite know what to say. He’d never met anyone who had been through as much as she had. He didn’t quite know what to say to someone who had gone through so much.

“What happened to you was terrible but you can’t blame all dragons for what one did. It would be like blaming all humans for the actions of one man,” Charlie finally found a way to explain his point.

“I don’t know,” Jessica said shaking her head.

“You should try to forgive the dragons,” Charlie suggested. “It’s not going to happen over night but you should at least give it a shot.”

“I’m trying,” she eventually said.

“That’s enough,” Charlie told her with an encouraging smile.           

* * *

 

Charlie observed Jessica’s behavior around Jamaya and finally pieced everything together.

“It was a Fireball wasn’t it,” Charlie asked her when he finally realized it, “that attacked your village?”

“Yeah,” Jessica said nodding her head.

Charlie nodded his head thoughtfully. He was slowly trying to piece together parts of Jessica’s life to make sense of her. They’d come a long way from when Charlie first met her. He now reckoned they were pretty good friends.

“I feel so silly but every time I see Jamaya I just—,” Jessica broke off. She was staring off handedly at the troublesome Fireball in question.

“It’s not silly,” Charlie said shaking his head. As much as he didn’t agree with her viewpoints it made sense. Her view of the world was influenced by a deeply tragic event. Charlie figured a dragon attack would scar anyone for life. Jessica looked up at him unsurely. She seemed to be deep in thought.

“I wonder why she doesn’t eat,” Jessica said looking over at Jamaya.

“She’s trying to tell us something,” Charlie voiced his opinion. He still hadn’t lost faith in Jamaya. Most of the other keepers dismissed Jamaya as troublesome and erratic but Charlie thought that there was a method to her madness.

“Yes, but what?” Jessia added thoughtfully. There was a time when Charlie would have been surprised to hear Jessica agree with him. But now, now that they were friends things were different. They agreed on a lot these days.

“It’s just so odd how she doesn’t want to eat,” Charlie sighed. Normally when dragons were temperamental they just went around eating everything in sight.

“Maybe she just doesn’t like what you’re giving her,” Jessica suggested.

“But we’ve tried everything,” Charlie pointed out. He began listing everything they’d offered Jamaya in her stay on the reserve, “Chicken, beef, turkey, ham, steak, raw meat, cooked meat, bird meat, horse meat…even rabbit!”

Suddenly Jessica got this look in her eye that can only be described as revelation. She’d thought of something, Charlie could tell.

“Not everything,” she said slowly. She could barely contain her grin.

“What do you mean by that?” Charlie asked not entirely sure what she was talking about.

“Charlie, has it ever occurred to you that maybe Jamaya is a vegetarian?” Jessica suggested.

Charlie almost laughed upon hearing that. There was no way that was the solution. Dragons were not vegetarians. It was completely unheard of. They ate meat. Always meat. They eat deer and other mammals. Not plants. Never plants. And yet, Jessica Sloan had yet to be wrong in her predictions about the dragons she encountered on the reserve. She was the one who helped figure out how to use the scales of the Horntail and she was the one who realized that Norbert was actually a Norberta. Maybe she was right about this too.

“Dragons usually aren’t vegetarian,” Charlie said hesitantly.

“Yes, I know but what if this one is?” she prompted.

“Then I will never question your judgment again,” Charlie said with a laugh.

“So you’ll test it out?” Jessica asked trying to not look as excited as she felt.

"Nope,” Charlie said shaking his head. Jessica looked surprised to hear that. Her face fell as little bit. “You will,” Charlie told her grinning. Jessica’s mouth fell open in shock.

“I—I don’t know about that,” she replied warily. “I’m not exactly good at dealing with dragons. I figured you would have guessed that by now.”

“I know but it’s never too late to learn,” Charlie said with a shrug.

So the two of them approached Jamaya with a giant lettuce cabbage. It was Jessica’s idea. According to her, most every body likes lettuce. They couldn’t go wrong with lettuce.

It was lunchtime so Jamaya was pacing angrily back and forth. She looked pretty irritated, even to Charlie who liked to see the dragon in a good light. The sun reflected off of Jamaya’s scales and threw a red glare in every direction. Charlie and Jessica had to squint when they looked directly at her.

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Jessica said nervously. She was standing in Jamaya’s quarters, cabbage in one hand and her wand in the other, looking very uncomfortable.

“You can do it,” Charlie told her in what he hoped was an encouraging voice. On the inside he was really quite terrified. Thinking back on it suggesting that Jessica feed the most temperamental dragon on the reserve probably wasn’t one of his best ideas. But it was too late to do anything about that now. He was just going to have to hope that Jessica was right about Jamaya being a vegetarian.

“But I don’t even know how!” Jessica protested. It was only a half lie. Jessica had seen Charlie and his interns feed dragons three times a day every day for the past few weeks. She knew how to feed a dragon…in theory.

“Just go with your instincts,” Charlie instructed.

Jessica glared at him in response. Charlie just smiled back at her. Taking a huge breath Jessica slowly began to move forward, towards the dragon. Jamaya regarded the newcomer with interest. The dragon’s yellow eyes were fixed on Jessica and the green plant in her hand. Jamaya didn’t look menacing though. She seemed more interested than anything. Jamaya probably didn’t consider Jessica to be much of a threat.

When she was close enough Jessica tossed the lettuce to Jamaya. The dragon followed the foreign object with her eyes and let the lettuce fall to the ground at her feet. Jessica slowly started edging backwards, away from the dragon. Jamaya began to sniff the food as she did with all the meals the keepers brought her.

Then a miracle occurred. If Charlie hadn’t been there as a witness he never would have believed it. But it happened all the same. Jamaya ate the lettuce—and she enjoyed it. She let out a sound of content after devouring the whole thing.

“I can’t believe it!” Charlie exclaimed as Jessica came running over to him.

“I knew it!” she declared triumphantly.

When he told this story to Jake and Lea he blamed what happened next on post-victory euphoria, he grabbed Jessica around the waist and hugged her happily. The two of them were so full of giddy laughter that it didn’t even feel out of place. Actually, it felt quite nice.

“I can’t believe it,” Charlie said again.

After they’d realized Jamaya liked plants Jessica and Charlie had fed her various plants they found around on the reserve. Jamaya had never been in a better mood. She was practically dancing when Jessica and Charlie left her. They were now on their way to the cafeteria to eat their lunch and tell everyone on the reserve about their discovery—Jessica’s discovery really.

“It does seem pretty unreal,” Jessica agreed.

“How did you know?” Charlie asked her. Jessica just shrugged.

“It was the only thing you guys hadn’t tried,” she replied but Charlie shook his head in disagreement.

“You’re a natural,” he told her. “I bet you aced Care of Magical Creatures,” he said with a laugh. She just smiled in her own way. “I know you have your dragon grudge and everything but if you can get past that I think you would see that you’d make a really great keeper.”

“You’re just saying that,” she said shaking her head.

“No I mean it,” Charlie insisted. “You’d even be good at the research part. You’re smarter than half of Dr. Bartlett’s team.” Jessica blushed slightly when he said that.

“I just know things,” she replied with a small shrug of her shoulders.

“More like everything,” Charlie said in response. Jessica just shook her head and laughed. They’d finally reached the cafeteria. Charlie couldn’t wait to go inside and tell Schmidt and everyone else what they discovered about Jamaya.

Jake and Lea were sitting at their usual table. Rob and Chase were off to the side talking about something or other. To Charlie’s surprise both Jake and Lea looked rather disgruntled.

“I wonder what happened to them,” Jessica commented on the expression on both of their faces.

“They don’t look very happy,” Charlie agreed.  

Jessica and Charlie eventually got to the table. Jessica began talking to Chase and Rob, effectively distracting them so that Charlie could have an uninterrupted conversation with his friends. Charlie appreciated it very much.

“Are you guys okay?” Charlie asked his two friends.

"No,” Lea growled, stabbing her fork angrily at the salad she was eating. Jake just remained somber and silent.

“Care to elaborate?” Charlie wondered. Lea didn’t say anything.

“It’s Chase,” Jake said to Charlie in a whisper.

“What did he do?” Charlie wanted to know.

“It’s really just the fact that he exists,” Lea put in with a glare in Chase’s direction.

Thankfully for her, Chase’s attention was otherwise occupied. Charlie was surprised to hear this attitude coming from Lea. He would have expected Jake to have that viewpoint but Lea seemed to be getting along fine with Chase up until now. Something had to have happened for this sudden change in her opinion.

“Is he mean to you?” Charlie prodded.

“He’s such a prat!” Lea exclaimed in a hushed whisper.

“Yeah, well the guy isn’t exactly my favorite either. Did he do anything specific to piss you off?” Charlie tried to get Lea to explain what was bothering her.

“He likes her,” Jake informed Charlie.

“He’s just such a jerk to everyone! He’s so arrogant and such a narcissist. I want to literally gouge his eyes out,” Lea hissed vehemently.

Charlie was rather taken aback by her outburst. He had no idea how hostile her feelings towards Chase were. It was also surprising to Charlie that Jake was angry too. If anything Jake should be happy that Lea doesn’t like Chase. Jake was so jealous that Chase got to spend all his time with her. And now that Lea hates his guts Jake shouldn’t have any more reason to be jealous and he should therefore be happy that Lea hates the guy.

“I complained to Schmidt,” Lea admitted. “But he’s making me be nice to the guy. We only have a little over a month left working with them anyway,” Lea sighed.

“That’s it?” Charlie asked in surprise. He couldn’t believe it had almost been a month since the representatives first came to the reserve.

“Only one more month!” Lea said sounding relieved. Charlie frowned.

“Why do you look so dismayed? I would have thought you would be happy to be rid of Sloan?” Lea asked.

“Jessica isn’t as bad as I thought she was,” Charlie admitted with a shrug.

“You like her!” Lea exclaimed.

“Yeah she’s nice,” Charlie agreed.

“No she means you _like_ her,” Jake said with a suggestive wink. Charlie’s eyes widened at the idea.

“No,” he said shaking his head. He’d only just gotten used to thinking of her as attractive. He’d barely gotten on a first name basis with the girl. There was no way he could possibly have feelings for her.

And yet…what could explain the weird sensation he felt whenever she was near to him? Not to mention the fact that his eyes were always drawn to her whenever she was in the vicinity. Charlie seemed to make it a personal mission of his to figure out her aversion to dragons and try to help her get over the traumas of her past. Suddenly the idea of him fancying Jessica wasn’t so far off.

“I don’t blame you,” Jake said encouragingly. “She’s actually pretty cool. When she found out that I liked Charms she let me borrow this great book.”

“I didn’t know that,” Charlie admitted. He was surprised by Jessica’s generosity. And yet, he really should stop getting so surprised whenever Jessica did something. It was obvious that she was a pretty special girl.

“Anyway, back to this issue at hand,” Lea interrupted. Charlie was relieved when their conversation went back to Chase. He was starting to get uncomfortable with how close Jessica was. For all he knew she could have heard the entire conversation. Truthfully, he hadn’t actually admitted to liking her…out loud at least.

“You’re just going to have to ride it out,” Charlie sighed.

“I don’t want to ride it out. He’s an ass,” Lea muttered.

“Oh that reminds me!” Charlie exclaimed suddenly remembering the reason he’d wanted to come to lunch in the first place.

“What?” asked both Jake and Lea.

“Jamaya is a vegetarian!” he told them. Jake and Lea both looked at Charlie as if he had gone crazy.

“You’re off your rocker mate,” Jake said shaking his head.

“You’ve gone mental,” Lea declared. Charlie looked to Jessica for back-up but she was currently talking to her brother. Jessica, seeming to sense Charlie’s glance looked over.

“Isn’t it true?” Charlie asked her.

“I’m going to go with yes,” she replied not even bothering to ask what he was talking about. Charlie was internally pleased that she’d trusted his word but he clarified the point of discussion so that he could prove it to Jake and Lea.

“That Jamaya is a vegetarian!”

“Oh yeah! It took me forever to realize but it totally makes sense with the way she was behaving whenever she was forced to eat the meat,” Jessica explained.

“You’re sure?” Jake asked.

“Yepp!” Jessica supplied.

“We fed her just earlier. She’s never been happier,” Charlie told them triumphantly. He’d always been the one who said that Jamaya was just misunderstood. Everyone else thought that she was evil but Charlie knew that Jamaya was just trying to tell them something. She had been trying to tell them that she didn’t eat meat.

“I don’t know,” Lea said hesitantly.

“Well then come with us after lunch and see for yourself,” Jessica challenged her. Lea raised an eyebrow. She was shocked at the slightly antagonizing tone in Jessica’s voice. Apparently Jessica did not like being doubted. After all, she was so smart that there was hardly ever a reason to doubt her at all.

Charlie and Jessica made their way back to Jamaya’s quarters with an entourage of followers. Jake was eager to see Jamaya’s apparent change of heart. Lea wanted proof that the dragon was in fact a vegetarian and therefore she had to drag Chase along. Schmidt was intrigued by the idea that Jamaya ate plants but he wouldn’t quite believe it until he saw it. Dr. Bartlett and Christopher Stevens, both avid researchers and both rather fond of Jessica were interested in observing Jamaya’s behavior. So the group walked to Jamaya’s living area together.

“We’re going to give her dinner,” Charlie was telling the group that followed him and Jessica, “and you’ll see how much it changes her.”

When they got to Jamaya the dragon was resting peacefully. She looked rather pleasant; it was quite the change from her usual rowdy antics. Jake raised his eyebrows in shock, Lea looking disbelieving, and Chase just seemed bored. Jamaya perked up visibly when she saw Jessica approaching. Jamaya hadn’t forgotten who had discovered her preference for plants.

“Do you want to feed her?” Charlie asked Jessica noticing the way Jamaya was acting. It was clear that the dragon had taken a liking to Jess.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Your boss wouldn’t be too pleased,” Jessica reminded Charlie that they had an audience.

“We’re pretty relaxed around here,” Charlie said shrugging his shoulders.

Jessica regarded Jamaya for a bit before agreeing. Charlie handed her the assortment of plants the interns had gathered for him. Jessica took the plants with steady hands. The fear she’d shown earlier on in the afternoon had been replaced with stubborn determination. Jessica was determined to prove that she’d been right about Jamaya to all the doubting people watching her.

“Jess is going to feed Jamaya her dinner now,” Charlie announced to the group watching. Jake and Lea exchanged incredulous looks. Chase just looked downright disproving. Dr. Bartlett, on the other hand, was beaming. Jessica slowly approached the dragon.

“You’re not going to stun her first?” asked Jake.

“Or put on the chains?” inquired Lea. It was clear that they doubted Jessica’s ability to handle Jamaya. Charlie just shook his head and smiled. As much as she would probably deny it Jessica and Jamaya had bonded.

Jamaya lifted her head and sniffed the air as Jessica made her approach. The dragon was obviously intrigued. Jamaya rose to her feet slowly. Her tail swayed back and forth in anticipation of her meal. Jessica tossed the first thing in her arms, cabbage, up into the air. Jamaya caught it eagerly in her mouth. The dragon devoured the cabbage and looked down at Jessica expectantly waiting for more. Jessica continued to feed Jamaya as everyone watched in awe.

“I can’t believe this,” Lea was saying in shock.

“This is certainly groundbreaking,” Schmidt acknowledged.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vegetarian dragon,” Chris nodded in agreement. Dr. Bartlett was watching the interaction between Jessica and Jamaya with an expression that could only be described as pride.

“How did you know?” Jake asked Jessica when she came back over to them. She was flushed with pride and Charlie thought it suited her well. She couldn’t stop smiling and either could he. They’d proved everyone wrong and shown that they were right.

“It was the only thing you didn’t try,” Jessica said shrugging her shoulders in modesty.

“I never would have thought to try it either,” Lea acknowledged.

“None of us would,” Schmidt agreed.

Charlie nodded his agreement. They didn’t think like Jessica did. She was more creative and observant than the other keepers on the reserve. It was the second time she’d figured out something that none of the others ever would have even considered. She just had a different way of thinking and Charlie really admired her for it.

Dr. Bartlett was talking to Jessica about something and the others were all listening intently. Jake pulled Charlie aside so they could talk away from the ears of everyone else.

“You really like her,” Jake said sounding rather convinced.

“No,” Charlie said shaking his head in denial.

“Charlie it was written all over your face. You couldn’t stop looking at her with that stupid grin of yours,” Jake pointed out.

“Even if I did like her it wouldn’t matter any way. She’s leaving in a month with the rest of the reps. It doesn’t make a difference how I feel about her,” Charlie decided to humor Jake in his thoughts.

“So you do like her!” Jake whispered triumphantly.

“No! I—well I’m not sure okay?” Charlie sighed. It was true that lately his opinion of Jessica Sloan had changed drastically. When he first met her the very sight of Jessica made him wrinkle his nose in dislike. But once he’d gotten to know her everything changed. Jessica was smart, funny, kind, and just different than every other girl he’d ever known. Maybe he did like her after all.

Either way it didn’t matter. She was only on the reserve for a month more. After that she would go back to Paris and he would never see her again. Any feelings he could possibly have for her were useless.

“Well I think you should tell her,” Jake said to Charlie. “I think that was my biggest mistake with Lea…not telling her that is.”

“It wouldn’t get us anywhere,” Charlie protested shaking his head.

“It’s just my suggestion,” Jake said shrugging his shoulders. “And Lea thinks it’s a good idea too,” he added as an afterthought.

“I’ll think about it,” Charlie said mostly to appease his friend. Never in a million years was he going to tell Jessica that he liked her more than he should. Charlie knew that there was no chance in hell she could ever like him back. She was beautiful and intelligent where as he was plain and simple. They came from two different worlds. And then Charlie remembered her troubled past and it seemed even less likely that she could possibly reciprocate his feelings.

On their walk back to dinner Charlie couldn’t help but overhear a slight disagreement between Chase and Jessica. They seemed to be discussing a rather unpleasant topic judging from the harshness in their tones.

“I can’t believe you!” Chase hissed at Jessica in scorn.

“I don’t really care what you think Chase,” Jessica said. Charlie could just picture Jessica rolling her eyes at the annoying man.

“We came here to evaluate a dragon reserve and here you are feeding a fucking dragon!” Chase shot back.

“So what?” Jessica asked defiantly.

“You’re letting yourself get sucked into the system. It goes against everything you stand for!” Chase accused.

“Roland you have no idea what I stand for,” Jessica replied evenly. Charlie could tell he was really pissing her off so he decided to interrupt the conversation and save Jessica some annoyance.

“Chase!” he called out loudly. The blonde man turned to Charlie, annoyance written all over his face.

“Yes,” he drawled back in reply.

“How was your afternoon with Lea?” Charlie inquired. Jessica flashed Charlie a smile of gratitude. That smile made the torturous conversation with Chase worth the irritation. Charlie then realized, that he indeed did have feelings for Jessica. He may as well accept it.

* * *

 

Dinner was a loud and boisterous affair **.** Everyone was full of excitement at the day’s discoveries. Jamaya’s newfound vegetarianism was a common topic of conversation. The discovery had left almost everyone in a good mood. It seemed that the only glum face in the entire cafeteria was that of Chase Roland. The man was always frowning lately. It was beginning to get on a lot of people’s nerves.

Robert had come over to congratulate his sister on her discovery. Charlie watched as the siblings chattered away happily. When Charlie had first met the Sloan twins he had thought that Robert was the more attractive of the two. Now that Jessica had let her guard down he could see that they were both equally attractive. Their faces were almost identical. But when Jessica smiled she seemed that much prettier. Maybe Charlie was just biased now that he knew he liked her.

Everything seemed to be going fine when suddenly there was a loud outburst from Jake’s end of the table. Charlie looked over to see Jake and Chase staring daggers at each other. Well that wasn’t highly unusual. The two of them didn’t like each other. It was practically common knowledge. But this seemed different.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Jake was saying angrily.

“I can talk to her however I want,” Chase replied defiantly jutting his chin out towards Jake. That probably wasn’t the best idea. Seconds later Jake’s fist made swift contact with Chase’s face. There was a bone-crunching crack and Chase clutched his nose angrily.

“Jake!” Lea exclaimed in surprise. Jake was not the violent type. He was generally easy going and liked almost every body. Jake was not the kind of person who went around punching people.

“Lea I’m sorry but I can’t sit around and watch that guy treat you like crap,” Jake said, still seething. Chase eventually recovered from the punch and was back on his feet ready to fight. Within seconds Chase had launched himself at Jake. Jake ducked his first hit but Chase eventually got in a good punch. Jake stumbled back and glared at Chase.

“Chase!” Robert yelled angrily. The Sloans had realized that there was a slight situation at hand.

“What the hell?” Jessica exclaimed completely shocked by the situation at hand. Jake had launched himself back at Chase and the two of them were practically rolling around on the table trying to kill each other.

“Shouldn’t we try to stop them?” Rob asked glancing over at Charlie. Personally, Charlie was hoping Jake could get in a few more punches before he stopped the fight.

“I guess so,” Charlie sighed. He could have easily stopped Jake but Charlie wasn’t exactly Chase’s biggest fan. Charlie strolled over to the brawling men and pulled Jake off of Chase. Chase didn’t even try to fight back he just rolled over moaning. Charlie couldn’t help thinking that Chase was such a wimp. Jake tried to shake Charlie’s hold but Charlie was significantly stronger.

“Let me go!” Jake yelled angrily trying to get back at Chase.

“Calm down first,” Charlie insisted.

“I won’t hit him again just let me go!” Jake urged. Charlie relaxed his grip and Jake pulled away. Jake was so angry he was shaking.

“Jake are you alright?” Lea asked running over to him. Upon further inspection Charlie noticed that besides a little blood Jake seemed to be relatively unharmed. Chase on the other hand was clearly sporting a black eye and a broken, bleeding nose.

"It’s not my blood,” Jake said with a shrug. He was still seething with anger but it wasn’t directed towards Lea. He was angry with Chase.

“Roland quit moaning would you?” Jessica sighed.

“Escort yourself to the healer’s tent," Charlie suggested. Chase got up and practically sprinted away from the cafeteria.

“Are you out of your mind?” Lea exclaimed instantly angry. Once she saw that Jake wasn’t injured she became very upset with him. “This is so not like you to go around hitting people like that!”

“Lea that asshole treated you like you were nothing. He acted like you were the dirt underneath his shoes. I couldn’t listen to him talk to you like that anymore,” Jake said seeming to have calmed down a bit. He didn’t want to yell at Lea.

“Why not?!” Lea asked. “Why couldn’t you just let it be? I was fine just ignoring him like everyone else. We only had one more month left of his crap. Why couldn’t you just let it be?”

“I just couldn’t!” Jake sighed averting his eyes from her face. Charlie felt like he was intruding on a very private moment even though the entire cafeteria was witness to the events. He could tell Jake was on the verge of admitting his actual feelings for Lea.

“Why not?!” Lea demanded to know. She seemed very upset by the whole thing. Jessica looked over at Charlie. He could tell she knew what was coming.

“Because I love you!” Jake exclaimed. “I love you and I couldn’t sit by and watch him treat you like that alright!?” Lea looked slightly taken aback by that.

“You what?” she whispered in shock.

“You heard me,” Jake replied equally as quiet. Now that Jake had calmed down he was rather embarrassed by all the attention he seemed to be getting.

“I know I’m just—” Lea broke off at a loss for words.

“Maybe you guys should take this somewhere else?” Jessica suggested. Lea looked around and blushed when she saw just how many people were watching the events unfold.

“That’s a good idea,” Charlie agreed. He grabbed Jake by the elbow and pulled his friend out of the dinner area. Jessica took Lea’s arm and the two of them followed. Charlie led the way back to the keepers’ tents.

 


	6. Ginny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie's family pays a visit to him at the reserve resulting in an irreversible shift in his relationship with Jessica.

“I’m sorry I made a scene,” Jake mumbled as soon as they were out of everyone’s earshot.

“It’s alright,” Lea said earnestly. 

Jake and Lea both looked incredibly intense at the moment that Charlie didn’t quite feel right being there. Wanting to give their friends some space, Charlie and Jessica slowly backed away from the two.

“I don’t want to eavesdrop,” Charlie said hesitantly.

“But?” Jessica asked curiously. Charlie laughed. He loved how she sensed the unvoiced “but” in his statement.

“They’re my best friends and I sort of want to see how this all plays out,” Charlie laughed guiltily. He and Jessica stood a few yards off watching Jake and Lea. They were far away from the pair that Charlie couldn’t hear what was being said. As much as he wanted to know he didn’t feel right listening in.

“I hope it works out,” Jessica commented.

“So do I,” Charlie sighed heavily. Then the voices got a bit louder and Jess and Charlie couldn’t help but listen.

“Jake are you sure?” Lea was asking hesitantly.

“Yes, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” Jake insisted. Charlie looked over at his friends just in time to see Lea pulling Jake closer to her so that she could kiss him. Charlie turned away smirking.

"Why are you smiling like that?” Jessica asked. She looked around Charlie and saw Lea and Jake together. When Charlie saw her face again she was smiling too. Charlie laughed and Jessica joined in.

“I’m so happy it worked out for them,” Charlie declared walking away to give his friends some privacy.

“Me too,” Jessica agreed following Charlie as they walked casually around the reservation.

“Jake’s only liked her for…forever,” Charlie informed Jessica.

“Forever?” Jessica asked jokingly.

“Well ever since they met. It was one of those instant attraction things,” Charlie explained with a shrug.

“Do you believe in that kind of thing?” Jessica asked. “Instant attraction—love at first sight?” She looked at him curiously.

“Eh, I dunno. I guess it exists—it’s just never happened for me,” Charlie answered thoughtfully. He’d had a few girlfriends in the past but he had never been instantly attracted to someone.

“Me either…but then again, I haven’t really been looking,” Jessica told him.

“What do you mean by that?” Charlie wondered.

“I haven’t had a lot of time for that whole romance thing. Until I was fifteen my single focus was survival. Even when we were in school I felt like I always had to look after Rob. He’s so easy going and quick to trust everyone. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t get hurt. And then right out of school I switched my focus to my career. It’s hard to work your way to the top when you have a shady background like me and Rob,” Jessica did her best to explain. Charlie nodded, taking all of this in.

“And now?” he asked sensing she wasn’t finished.

“And now—I’m not sure exactly. But things feel different here,” Jessica said shrugging her shoulders.

“This place can change people,” Charlie agreed.

* * *

 

The next morning Charlie received an owl saying that his family intended on visiting him in the next week **.** Charlie wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, it would be nice to see his family again but he didn’t want to give Jess, Rob, and Chase the impression that the reserve was always full of family members.

Regardless of Charlie’s feelings on the matter, two days later Charlie’s parents arrived along with Bill and Ginny. Percy was chasing his ambition to work at the Ministry of Magic, Fred and George were staying with their friend Lee Jordan and Ron was visiting his friend Hermione Granger. Charlie went over to greet his family and Jessica hung back and watched the exchange from afar.

“Charlie!” Ginny called out to him excitedly. Charlie went over to her and his little sister enveloped him in a hug.

“Nice to see you Gin,” Charlie said to the beaming twelve year old. He then turned to greet his parents and Bill who had apparated over from Egypt.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!” exclaimed his mother, her eyes instantly going to his hair. “You need a haircut!” Charlie resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her ever-predictable comment.

“It’s fine mum,” Charlie protested. “Actually if you have a second there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Charlie’s family followed him over to where Jessica was standing in the cafeteria.

“Everyone this is Jessica Sloan. She works for the Ministry,” Charlie explained. Jessica smiled at his family in a polite manner. If Charlie didn’t know any better he’d say she was nervous.

“Nice to meet you,” she said still smiling.

“Jess this is some of my family. These are my parents Molly and Arthur,” Charlie’s mum and dad smiled at Jessica as Charlie gestured to them. “This is my older brother Bill. He’s a curse breaker for Gringotts—works in Egypt,” Charlie explained. Bill nodded his head at Jessica. “And this is my little sister Ginny.”

“Mrs. Weasley!” Lea’s voice carried across the room as she’d spotted Charlie’s mother. Lea had met Molly during one of Charlie’s mum’s visits to the reserve. The two of them had bonded instantly and Lea loved Mrs. Weasley. Molly was sure to send Lea the occasional care package full of sweets.

“Lea,” Molly said smiling, “how are you?” Lea and Jake walked over to the Weasley family gathering. Charlie was pleased to see that they were holding hands.

“Never better,” Lea replied with a huge smile.

* * *

 

Jessica was oddly subdued all morning. She hardly said anything. It was almost like when she’d first gotten to the reserve. Only this time Charlie knew something was wrong. She seemed reserved and put out but Charlie wasn’t sure why. He figured he might as well ask.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine why?” came her quick reply.

“You just seemed quiet,” Charlie said shrugging his shoulders.

“I just have a lot on my mind,” Jessica told him. Charlie could tell she didn’t really want to talk so he let the subject drop but he could tell something was really bothering her. At lunch instead of sitting with Lea, Chase, and Jake, Jessica went over to sit with her brother. Chase’s seat was also empty so Charlie’s family sat with him, Lea, and Jake.

“Jessica is a pretty girl,” Molly observed. Charlie glanced over to where she was sitting with Rob. She looked a little sad. Charlie wished he knew what was bothering her.

“She’s nowhere near as bad as you made her out to be,” Bill added.

“She’s changed a lot since she first got here,” Jake informed them.

“She used to be pretty awful,” Lea admitted. “But now I really like her.”

Charlie didn’t comment. His main focus was on Jessica across the room. He watched her play with her lunch before shoving the tray away seemingly having no appetite. Robert looked rather subdued as well. After a couple of moments Rob glanced over at Charlie’s table—Charlie’s family to be exact.

And then it hit Charlie. He couldn’t believe he didn’t realize it before. Jessica and Robert were missing their parents. The arrival of Charlie’s family must have triggered some memories for the two of them. Charlie felt a pang of guilt as he remembered the unhappy look on Jessica’s face. She’d never really known a family. She told Charlie as much. Charlie remembered the way she’d wistfully stared at the photograph of his family Charlie kept on his door and it all clicked.

“Do you miss your parents?” Charlie asked Jessica on their way back from feeding Norberta dinner.

“It’s not really that I miss them…I didn’t really know them,” Jessica admitted. “I’m sorry for being weird this morning,” she added, “It’s just I was missing what could have been. I was thinking about what Rob and I could have had and it was a little painful.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. It was sort of an automatic response. Whenever someone was in pain you just said I’m sorry even if there was nothing you could do.

“It’s not like it’s your fault,” Jessica said laughing.

“I know but I just—I can’t imagine growing up without a family. No one should be without a family,” Charlie said.

“I have Rob and as long as we have each other we’ll be good,” Jess smiled.

“Family doesn’t have to be blood either,” Charlie added. “Jake and Lea are every bit a part of my family. They’re my family here on the reserve.” Jessica nodded thoughtfully. “My family is staying in one of the tents we have for guests. I’m gonna visit them tonight after dinner. Do you want to come?” Charlie found himself inviting Jessica along. He wasn’t sure why he did it but something told him it was a good idea.

“I don’t want to intrude,” Jessica said shaking her head hesitantly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie insisted, “Besides, Ginny has been dying to meet you.” The second part wasn’t even a lie. Ever since Charlie had told his sister about Jessica working for the Ministry Ginny wanted to talk to her. Ginny loved everything to do with magic.

“Okay then,” Jessica agreed hesitantly. Charlie smiled at her reassuringly.

The two of them walked into the tent where the Weasley clan was staying. Ginny and Bill were playing exploding snap on the floor. Molly was sitting in the corner knitting and Arthur was reading the Evening Prophet.

“Charlie!” Ginny exclaimed happily from the floor.

“Hey Gin, I brought Jessica just like you asked,” Charlie informed his sister. Ginny smiled excitedly.

“Charlie’s other friends are so boring,” Ginny said to Jessica who just raised an eyebrow.

“Jake and Lea are not boring,” Charlie argued.

“They don’t work for the Ministry _and_ with dragons,” Ginny replied evenly.

“The Ministry isn’t really that exciting,” Jessica told Ginny who looked surprised. “The dragons are a lot more entertaining.”

“Really?” Ginny said not quite believing her. Charlie fought back a laugh. The disbelieving expression on Ginny’s face was priceless.

“The dragons are a lot cooler,” Jessica assured her.

“I don’t believe you,” Ginny said shaking her head.

Back when Charlie first met Jessica Sloan if someone had told Charlie that Jessica would be defending dragons Charlie would have sent them to St. Mungos. But Charlie watched in awe as Jessica told Ginny stories about all the dragons she met. Jess talked about Norberta and her eggs. She told the story about Sabra and the experiments and the story about Jamaya being a vegetarian.

“I like the reserve a lot more than I like my office back at the Ministry,” Jessica told Ginny with a smile. “But you can’t tell anyone I told you that!”

“Alright,” Ginny said with a smile of her own. Ginny had listened to all of Jessica’s stories with an awestruck expression on her face.

“You really have a vegetarian dragon?” Bill asked Charlie in surprise.

“We never would have known if it wasn’t for Jess,” Charlie admitted.

He expected Jessica to deny this but when he looked over he saw that Ginny had challenged her to a game of exploding snap. Charlie also noticed that once she’d become relaxed Jessica had taken her hair out of her usual bun. It was only the second time Charlie had seen Jessica with her hair down and the effect was just as mesmerizing. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She just looked so different.

Charlie pulled his focus back to his family. His mother was trying to tell him something and Charlie figured he should probably be paying attention. For the next twenty minutes or so Charlie talked to his parents. It was nice to hear from them again but it was getting late. They had an early morning ahead of them so Charlie stood up to leave.

“We should get going,” he said to Jessica who nodded as she got up from where she was talking to Ginny.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Charlie waved goodnight to his family.

“Goodnight,” Jessica said to them.

Charlie was relieved when they all waved back. Together Charlie and Jessica made their way back over to the keepers’ tent. The only person left awake was Chase. He was sulking because pretty much everyone on the reserve was angry with him. Chase narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Charlie and Jessica when they walked in the tent together but neither of them paid him any heed. They walked right past him to their rooms. Charlie paused outside his door and Jessica did the same.

“Your family is really nice,” Jessica told Charlie with a small smile.

“Thanks,” Charlie said. Until he met Jessica Charlie never really appreciated how lucky he was to have grown up with a family like his. Jessica never knew what it was like to have a loving family.

“It must have been nice,” she mused, “growing up with such a big family.”

Charlie nodded his head. He could tell that some sort of revelation was coming. She was about to say something.

“I’d always sort of wondered what it would be like if my parents hadn’t died—“ Jessica broke off and looked away from Charlie. He could tell she was on the verge of tears. Charlie didn’t quite know what to say. “If we’d actually gotten the chance to be a family,” Jessica choked out. Her eyes had welled up and Charlie could tell she was willing herself not to cry.

Charlie reached out towards her hesitantly. He put his hand on her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting manner. Jessica took a deep breath and she seemed to have gained some composure. At any rate it didn’t look as if she was going to cry anymore.

“I’m sorry I’m being silly,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “I have Rob. We’re lucky to have each other,” she said with a determined expression.

“It’s okay to be sad about what happened,” Charlie told her.

“What do you mean?” Jessica asked him.

Based on everything he’d heard and observed Charlie figured that Jessica never properly mourned for the death of her parents. Even though Jessica and Robert were twins Jessica often seemed years older. It was clear that she’d put on a strong façade so that she could protect Robert. It explained Robert’s constant easy going demeanor and Jessica’s tendency towards being more serious.

“It just seems that with everything that happened,” Charlie began cautiously. “That you had to take on a lot more responsibility and you didn’t get the chance to react the way you needed to.” Charlie didn’t feel as if he was making sense but Jessica seemed to understand him.

“I just—I didn’t have a choice. Robert needed me. I had to be strong for him,” she said and Charlie could see that she was about to cry again.

Normally the idea of a crying girl would have scared the crap out of him. But this was different. This was Jessica and Charlie was beginning to really care for her. And she needed to cry. She’d never gotten the chance to have a good cry over something that should have been worth days of devastation.

“It’s okay if you want to cry,” Charlie told her, “crying doesn’t make you weak.”

Jessica nodded as tears began to leak out of the sides of her eyes. She still seamed to be fighting it. Her shoulders seemed to shake and then all of a sudden she was crying full force. Without even thinking Charlie wrapped his arms around her and Jessica cry on his shoulder. He held her in what he hoped was a comforting hug. He rubbed her back and just let her grieve the way she should have years ago.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica said once she was all cried out.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Charlie assured her. She smiled at him gratefully. And even though her eyes were swollen and blotchy and her face was slightly red Charlie thought that Jessica stilled looked pretty. “But you should get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

“I feel drained,” Jessica admitted. She turned to go into her room and paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Thank you Charlie,” she said turning to face him.

“You’re welcome,” Charlie told her as they went into their respective rooms. Charlie wasn’t quite sure what exactly had happened that night but he had a gut feeling that somehow, everything had changed.

* * *

When Charlie saw Jessica the next morning she looked like a different person. Jessica had forgone her standard bun and her hair was down falling in waves across her back. She was wearing sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt. She looked like a regular keeper on the reserve. Charlie felt a surge of affection for her. He never would have imagined feeling this way about Jessica Sloan a month ago.

When Charlie took his seat at the table Jessica smiled up at him from her toast. She seemed to be in a better mood than Charlie had ever seen her in. Jake and Lea were talking about something or other and Ginny was going on and on about something while Jessica listened patiently.

Charlie watched as his little sister talked to Jessica as if Jess was the most important person in the room. The admiration in Ginny’s eyes was clear. Ginny had found herself a new role model. Charlie would be exceptionally proud of his little sister if she grew up to be anything like Jessica.

“I was so worried I wasn’t going to make Gryffindor,” Ginny was telling Jessica. “Everyone in our entire family was in Gryffindor. What house were you in?”

“Oh, I didn’t go to Hogwarts,” Jessica told her, “I went to Beauxbatons.”

“Where’s that?” Ginny asked as her eyebrows shot into her hairline.

“In France,” Jessica informed her. Ginny’s eyes widened at the sound of the foreign country.

“You went to school in France?” she was clearly impressed. “Do you speak French then?”

“Yes I do,” Jessica said holding back a laugh.

“School in France must be pretty cool,” Ginny said thoughtfully.

“Hogwarts seems like it would be pretty cool too,” Jessica assured her.

“Oh it is,” Ginny agreed with a firm nod of her head. Charlie laughed to himself. Ginny was always very entertaining. “If you went to Hogwarts I think you’d have been in Gryffindor.”

“I would have liked that,” Jessica said with a smile.

“Oh I know,” Ginny declared. “Gryffindor is the best.” She said it so simply and so self-assuredly. Charlie was impressed that Jessica hadn’t laughed yet. There was something highly amusing about listening to a twelve year old say things with such conviction. But that was Ginny.

“Hey Gin, if you don’t mind I’m going to borrow Jess for a minute,” Charlie said interrupting the conversation.

“Alright,” Ginny said going back to her breakfast. Charlie and Jessica got up and went to look at the schedule to see where Schmidt has assigned them for the day. Charlie turned to look at Jessica who seemed much happier than last night.

“You have a new fan,” Charlie said to her. Jessica laughed.

“I like her,” she declared. “She reminds me of Lea.”

“Norberta again today,” Charlie muttered when he saw the schedule. It wasn’t anything exciting but they could have gotten a much worse assignment.

“Thank you for last night Charlie,” Jessica said catching him off guard.

“Don’t mention it,” Charlie shrugged off her apology. Jessica however seemed determined to say something.

“No really though. I just—I wanted to say thank you for just being there. I appreciated it,” she looked earnest so Charlie nodded.

“Anytime. I’m here anytime you need me,” he told her. Jessica glanced down at her feet and then back up at him. Charlie could have sworn she was blushing just a bit. He decided not to press the matter and the two of them went off to feed Norberta her breakfast.

“You look different,” Charlie told Jessica while they were watching Norberta wolf down her breakfast eagerly.

“Different?” echoed Jessica questioningly.

“Good different,” Charlie assured her hastily. Jessica laughed lightly.

“Thanks, I guess,” Jess said. “I’m wearing some of Lea’s clothes,” She admitted with a grin. “I don’t really own anything this casual.”

“You should invest in some more casual clothes,” Charlie suggested with a grin. He decided Jess looked good casual, really good. He liked the way her hair curled loosely around her back and how relaxed a t-shirt could make her look.

“I just might have to,” Jessica agreed. “What time is it?”

“Around eleven,” Charlie said after glancing down at his watch.

“Crap, I’ve got to drop by the owlry and get this mailed in by noon,” Jessica said frowning.

“What do you have to mail in?” Charlie wondered.

“The weekly evaluation,” Jessica answered simply.

Over the past week Charlie had almost forgotten that Jessica was supposed to be evaluating the reserve. He’d grown used to having her around. He’d gotten so accustomed to her company that it was almost as if she was just another keeper he worked with.

“You send an evaluation every week?” Charlie was surprised to learn this. That meant she’d been sending evaluations for the past four weeks and he didn’t even know it. It made Charlie feel slightly uncomfortable but he wasn’t sure why.

“We all do,” Jess told him. “I had to write about that fight between Jake and Chase though,” Jess admitted with a frown.

“Why?” Charlie asked. He didn’t really think that was any of the Department’s business honestly.

“Because Chase’s evaluation for this week is going to be crazy biased because of it. I’m sure all he did was say terrible things about the reserve and the keepers because of it. Chase is childish like that,” Jessica explained. It was a good point.

“Good thinking,” Charlie nodded.

“Then again I’m not really one to talk. My evaluations have been slightly biased too,” she said with a laugh.

That surprised Charlie. He knew Jessica wasn’t exactly thrilled with dragons at the beginning of her stay on the reserve but he thought that he’d at least managed to change her opinion slightly. Charlie was rather upset that she still thought of dragons and the reserve in a negative manner.

“What bias?” he found himself asking. “I thought you were starting to like it here on the reserve.”

“Oh I am!” Jessica exclaimed. “And that’s just exactly the problem. Lately, I think it might appear that I like the reserve a little too much.” Charlie was relatively pleased to hear her say that.

“That’s not a bias that’s just the truth. Everyone likes the reserve,” Charlie said grinning confidently. Jessica laughed and shook her head at him.

“I didn’t always like it here,” Jessica reminded him. Although her tone was light and joking Charlie felt his smile fall a little bit.

“What made you change your mind?” he wondered. Jessica looked down when he asked her that.

“I’d rather not say,” she said shyly.

“You know, that only makes me want to know even more,” Charlie pointed out. Jessica’s laughter rang out across the empty fields.

“You’re not getting it out of me,” she told him firmly.

“I’ll get you when you’re least expecting it,” Charlie assured her with a grin. Jessica rolled her eyes at him but she was laughing all the same.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. Charlie’s team just observed Norberta and her eggs. Everyone was anxious for the eggs to hatch. It would undoubtedly mean more young dragons on the reserve and young dragons are quite the handful. The interns for that year were certainly going to get a lot more than they bargained for.

* * *

 

One of the downsides to having his family on the reserve was that Charlie was never able to hide things from his brother. Bill picked up on the fact that Charlie fancied Jessica right away. In fact, Bill probably realized that Charlie fancied her before Charlie himself did. Bill was so intrigued by his little brother’s interest in the Ministry representative that he pulled Charlie aside to have a friendly brotherly chat.

“What gives?” Bill asked Charlie.

“Er, what do you mean?” Charlie wondered. He didn’t exactly know what Bill was referring to.

“You write me letters ranting about how much you can’t stand this girl, Sloan. You go on and on about how bloody impossible she is. You don’t have one nice thing to say about the girl and then I come here and find that you fancy the pants off her. What gives?” Bill explained.

“I don’t fancy her,” Charlie protested in vain. Even as he said it Charlie knew it was a lie. He had to face the facts. Charlie was starting to fancy Jessica Sloan.

“Charlie I’ve seen the way you look at her. I know my little brother. I can tell,” Bill explained.

“I didn’t mean to fancy her,” Charlie sighed.

  
"She’s not so horrible after all,” Bill added with a laugh. Charlie shot his brother a dark look. “Lea told me she’s changed a lot.”

“It doesn’t feel right saying that she’s changed. That makes it sound like Jess was a bad person before she got here and now she’s a good person. I think she was always this amazing person but she just wouldn’t let herself open up,” Charlie tried to explain the evolution of Jessica the way he saw it.

“Yep, you fancy her,” Bill said. He was completely and utterly convinced that his little brother was very much in like with this Jessica Sloan girl.

* * *

 

After their long day of work Charlie and Jessica were sitting outside of their tent relaxing in the night air. Bill had come over and he was talking with Jake and Lea about some treasure he’d found in Egypt. Ginny had challenged Rob to a game of exploding snaps while Chase sulked off in the corner. The night was filled with the chatter of other keepers on the reserve as everyone enjoyed the nice night.

“How long do you reckon until Gin beats him?” Charlie asked noticing that Jessica’s attention was focused on the game between her brother and Ginny.

“I give him five minutes tops,” Jessica said with a laugh. “Rob’s rubbish at it.”

“It’s Ginny’s new phase,” Charlie informed her with a grin. “She challenges every person she meets. She’s quite good by now—she beat me twice already. I wasn’t even trying to let her win. It’s ruddy embarrassing.” Jessica laughed as the cards exploded in her brother’s face. Charlie couldn’t help but notice how nice her laugh sounded.

"We’re going to call it a night,” Jake announced to the group as he and Lea stood up. Charlie and Jessica exchanged a knowing glance. They were both aware that when Jake said that he and Lea were calling it a night that was code for they were going to sneak off to Jake’s room for a quick snog before bed.

“Are there any married couples on the reserve?” Jessica asked Charlie off-handedly. Jake and Lea’s new relationship had got her thinking—what happened to the keepers who fell in love? Jessica was curious as to whether they continued living sequestered in the tents or whether they got to live somewhere else.

“A few—it’s not too common,” Charlie admitted with a shrug. “Most of the keepers are single men. I mean, Schmidt and a lot of the researchers have their own families but they don’t live on the reserve,” Charlie explained. “Dr. Bartlett lives with his family a couple miles from here. He has to _apparate_ here every morning. But Schmidt and his family live in their own tent.” Jessica nodded thoughtfully.

“So if everything works out for Jake and Lea they don’t have to stay living across the hall from each other forever?” Jessica mused. Charlie laughed.

“Of course not!” he said chuckling. “But then again a lot of keepers make the decision to leave the reserve once they get married. It’s a pretty dangerous job—not conducive to having a family.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Jess said. Her attention was diverted when Rob lost the card game again.

“Okay that’s it I can’t get beat by you anymore!” he declared. Ginny laughed, clearly pleased with herself. “I’m off,” he said to the others. Jess and Charlie nodded their goodnights as Robert disappeared into the tent. After Rob’s departure Chase got up and wandered off into the night.

“He gets weirder every day I swear,” Charlie sighed shaking his head at Chase’s retreating figure. Jessica nodded in agreement.

“I guess that’s our cue,” Bill said with a laugh. “Ready to go Gin?” he asked his little sister. Ginny looked up from where she was sitting happily on the ground.

“No,” she declared gathering up her cards.

“Gin you should get to sleep it’s getting pretty late,” Charlie told her.

“It’s barely past my bedtime,” Ginny protested putting her hands on her hips in true little sister fashion.

“We’re going to go to bed too,” Jess added.

Charlie raised an eyebrow at her. It was barely ten thirty, still early in his opinion. Jessica shot him a pointed look. Charlie understood. They stood up from their chairs as to demonstrate their point.

“Oh fine,” Ginny sighed standing up. She shot her older brothers a fierce glare. Ginny clearly was not ready to call it a night.

“See you tomorrow,” Jessica said to Ginny.

“Bye Jess!” Ginny waved happily over her shoulder as she and Bill began walking back to where the Weasleys were staying.

“You she’ll listen to but the rest of us, forget about it!” Charlie laughed shaking his head.

“She likes me,” Jessica said shrugging her shoulders.

“She practically idolizes you!” Charlie agreed, “She wants to be just like you when she grows up. Then again last week she told me she wanted to be just like Helga Hufflepuff. It changes a lot.” Jessica laughed a big full laugh. Charlie loved it. “She’ll be lucky though, if she grows up to be even a little bit like you.” Jessica looked down at her feet.

“Not really,” she shook her head. A small blush had crept up on her cheeks.

“C’mon Jess. You’re smart, smarter than half of Dr. Bartlett’s research team really,” Charlie pointed out.

"That’s true,” Jessica laughed despite herself.

“And surprisingly nice,” Charlie added. “Honestly when I first met you I couldn’t really stand you—“

“Hey!” Jessica interrupted whacking him lightly on his arm.

“BUT! Once I got to know you I found out how awesome you can be,” Charlie amended quickly with a lopsided grin.

“Much better,” Jess laughed.

“And you’re funny,” Charlie continued.

“That’s not true,” Jess countered, “I have a terrible sense of humor.”

“I never said you told good jokes. But it’s bloody hilarious when you manage to trip over your own feet at least three times a day.”

“Me being clumsy has nothing to do with this,” Jess argued.

“Alright alright,” Charlie agreed just to placate her. “But we can’t forget that you’re bloody gorgeous.” Jessica opened her mouth to argue that point as well. “And the best part is you don’t even know how beautiful you are,” Charlie added in a voice that was barely above a whisper. That seemed to shut her up. Jess just looked at him as if she didn’t quite believe what he was saying.

Charlie hadn’t meant to let Jess know how he felt about her but somehow it all came slipping out. It wasn’t a flat out confession of how much he liked her but she was a smart girl. It didn’t take an Arithmacy expert to figure out that if a guy tells a girl he thinks she’s beautiful he has feelings for her.

“You think I’m beautiful?” she asked with a smirk. Charlie grinned at her.

“Yeah well you know,” he said with a shrug.

“You’re not too bad yourself Weasley,” she added in a joking manner.

“Ah, Weasley it’s Weasley now?” Charlie asked continuing the joking tone.

“Well that really depends,” Jess said nonchalantly.

“Oh yeah? Depends on what?” Charlie wanted to know.

"Whether or not you kiss me in the next ten seconds,” she declared.

Charlie didn’t need to be told twice. Flashing her a brilliant grin Charlie leaned in to close the space between Jess and himself. He never in a million years would have imagined kissing Jessica Sloan when he first met her and yet here he was. As it turned out, in Charlie’s opinion, kissing Jessica Sloan was even better then playing with dragons.

Charlie and Jessica were far too engrossed in each other to notice Chase’s return. The ministry representative sent the pair of them one of the dirtiest looks he could muster. Chase’s glare was wasted upon them as neither Charlie nor Jessica noticed Chase or his glowering.


	7. Maria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chase takes off after his altercation with Lea and Jake causing the department head to come to the reserve and investigate. Everything Charlie and Jessica have worked for is suddenly at stake.

Charlie woke up the next morning feeling like one of the luckiest men alive. He couldn’t believe that he’d just spent a good part of the previous night snogging Jessica Sloan. And he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she liked him back. It felt amazing.

Unfortunately, his bubble of happiness quickly dissipated upon entering the cafeteria for breakfast. One look around the room and Charlie could tell that something was definitely not right. Jake and Lea were not sitting at their usual table. The two of them were having a rather serious discussion with Schmidt. Chase, Rob, and Jess were nowhere to be seen. Charlie spotted Reese out of the corner of his eye and he practically ran over to her.

"Do you have any idea what’s going on?” he asked as Reese saw him.

“Yeah one of the reps left late last night and Schmidt is having a minor freak out,” Reese informed Charlie.

Charlie’s heart began to race. What if Jessica had left? What if last night had been too much for her and she’d gone and left? His heart was thumping against his chest. Charlie could barely find his voice to ask the necessary question.

“Who was it?”

“Chase Roland,” Reese said sitting down to her breakfast. Charlie quickly sat down opposite from her. He was incredibly relieved to hear that name come out of her mouth.

“Do you know why?” Charlie pushed for more information. He wanted to know as much as possible about the current situation.

“You probably know a lot more than I do Weasley,” Reese sighed. Charlie felt bad. She was clearly trying to enjoy her breakfast and he was pestering her.

“Alright, well thanks. See you later,” Charlie said before getting up and walking over to where Jake and Lea were conversing with Schmidt.

“…punched him?” Schmidt was exclaiming as Charlie approached them.

"I just couldn’t take his bullshit anymore,” Jake said shrugging his shoulders.

“Merlin Henderson you couldn’t have waited another month?” Schmidt sighed. He looked incredibly stressed up.

“The guy was unbearable,” Lea defended Jake instantly. Despite all the chaos Jake couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Could somebody please fill me in?” Charlie asked.

“Chase left last night,” Lea told him.

“Said something to Rob about being fed up with the reserve and everyone on it,” Jake added.

“Apparently he’s been writing rotten reviews ever since he got here,” Lea continued the flood of information.

“And now he’s trying to get the two month review period allotted to our reserve pushed back. He wants to shut our reserve down,” Jake finished.

“Do you think he’s capable of doing something like that?” Charlie asked Schmidt. Russel Schmidt just sighed in frustration.

“I don’t know to be honest,” Schmidt sighed. “I mean it depends on what the other two reps have been saying in their reviews. If Chase is the only one who wrote negative reports he might not be able to do much.”

“What are we going to do now?” Charlie asked.

“What do you mean?” Schmidt raised his eyebrows at Charlie.

“Well we have to try and stop Chase from destroying our reserve,” Charlie said. He would have thought that would be obvious.

“There’s only so much we can do,” Schmidt said shaking his head. “We have to wait and see if we hear anything from the Department about this. We’re only going on what Jessica Sloan told us this morning. Apparently Chase went to see her brother last night before leaving.”

Charlie immediately began scanning the cafeteria for a sign of Robert and Jessica. They were still absent. Then suddenly Charlie spotted Jessica by the door. Their eyes made contact and she came rushing over to him. Charlie’s heart started racing again but this time for an entirely different reason. Even though the reserve was in crisis mode just the idea of being in the same room as Jess made his heart beat faster.     

“Robert’s gone,” was the first thing out of her mouth.

“What?!” Charlie, Schmidt, Jake, and Lea all said at once.

“He went after Chase. He’s going to try and stop him. If Chase tells the Department that the reserve should be shut down Rob’s going to tell them that the reserve should stay open. He’s going to try and fight whatever Chase does,” Jessica explained hastily.

“Oh thank Merlin!” Lea let out a huge sigh of relief.

“He’s going to keep me updated,” Jessica told them. The entire group seemed to relax upon hearing that Rob was going to fight for them. Schmidt still looked incredibly uneasy. Jessica seemed to notice this so she addressed him directly. “Mr. Schmidt my brother and I really like this reserve. We don’t want to see it shut down any more than you do.”

“Thank you Miss Sloan. This is just all so much more dramatic than I expected,” Schmidt admitted.

“Ah yes, well Chase is quite the drama queen,” Jess shrugged her shoulders. Jake and Lea burst out laughing. Charlie chuckled under his breath.

“Just carry on the day like it’s any other day,” Schmidt told his keepers. Jake, Lea, Charlie, and Jess all began to walk back to their usual table.

"Robert left last night,” Jess told the group. “Chase came to see him around midnight. Rob ran right over to my room and told me everything before he left too. I wonder if he’s had time to send an update.”

“If he did we’ll probably get it around lunchtime,” Jake mused.

“I’m not going to be able to work like this,” Lea sighed. “I’m all flustered and anxious. I don’t like this.”

“Either do I,” Jake agreed, “but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.”

* * *

 

Charlie and Jess headed out to the fields with a giant weight on their shoulders. Charlie wouldn’t feel completely relieved until they heard from Rob. Even working with the dragons wasn’t enough to distract Charlie from the potential destruction of the reserve. Jess seemed rather worried as well.

“I can’t believe Chase would do something so childish,” Jessica said was they watched one of the interns, Stephen Miller, feed Jamaya her daily lettuce.

“I can,” Charlie said. “Chase was so disagreeable and immature. Don’t you remember how he acted after he lost that Quidditch game?”

“I suppose so,” Jess nodded her head in agreement. “I just don’t know why he would do something like that. I mean obviously he wasn’t happy here. And there was that fight with Jake but that feels like it happened days ago. I wonder what prompted him to leave and to go with such a vendetta.”

“Who knows?” Charlie shrugged. “We may never know. As long as we don’t let him get away with anything it doesn’t matter. Although, if I’d known he would pull a stunt like this I would have let Jake punch him a few more times.” Jessica laughed lightly.

“Are you okay?” Jess asked him warily.

“Yeah, of course…why?” Charlie wondered what made her ask that question.

“Well it’s just the reserve is your way of life…and now it’s being threatened by Chase and his never-ending stupidity. If I were you I would be pretty pissed off,” Jessica explained. Charlie took all of this into consideration.

“I guess I just don’t really see Chase and his grudge as a big threat. I can’t really wrap my mind around the possibility that the reserve could get shut down,” Charlie tried to explain his thought pattern. Jess nodded contemplatively.

“I don’t mean to bring you down or anything but Chase is a very big threat,” she warned.

“I just wanna hear what Rob’s got to say about all of this,” Charlie sighed.

“Me too,” Jessica agreed, “Lunch can’t come soon enough.”

With all things considered Charlie didn’t feel too guilty about bringing his team down for lunch a bit early. Everyone was rather anxious and a bit on edge. No one could really put out their best effort in terms of work that day. News travelled fast on the reserve and bad news travelled at the speed of light. By midmorning almost everyone had heard about the departure of chase.

When Jessica finally received her much-anticipated owl during lunch one could practically cut the tension in the air with a knife. Every eye was on her as she opened the envelope with trembling fingers. Jessica quickly scanned the contents of the letter and looked up at Charlie after two minutes or so. She seemed to be speechless. Charlie wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. Without a word she handed him the letter and Charlie began to read.

            _Jess,_

_Sorry I took off in such a rush last night but I’m sure you understand. Anyway I don’t have a lot of time to write. We’re back in London now…at the ministry actually. Roland went straight to the Department head, Augers, with his bloody awful reports and demanded that they shut down the reserve. Obviously they told him the reserve still had a month left on the review charts but Roland didn’t care. He was going on and on about how awful it was when I showed up. He was surprised to see me but I talked with Augers and told him not to listen to Chase. He didn’t like that much. The committee brought out all of our reports and started reviewing everything we’d written. The committee was confused because obviously there were mixed reviews. Chase’s reports were ridiculously negative; mine rather enthusiastic, and they thought yours were probably the closest to the truth. That is until they got to this past week’s. They seemed to think your reports had taken a positive turn. Chase explained this by saying something that shocked even me. Chase said the only reason your wrote such a good report was because of Charlie. He said that you two were involved and that’s why you wrote what you did. I denied this of course, not knowing otherwise, and then Chase produced a memory in which he saw the two of you kissing. (Honestly Jess you couldn’t have given me a bit of a heads up?) I ignored this naturally, and told the committee that the only reason Chase hated the reserve was because of his feelings for Lea and her relationship with Jake. The whole scene was a bit chaotic to say the least. It could have easily gotten out of hand but thankfully Augers put a stop to all the talking. She’s coming down herself because she doesn’t trust all the mixed reviews she’s been getting. So the three of us are returning sometime tonight. I wrote to Schmidt telling him to expect our arrival around dinnertime. If you are having some sort of relationship with Charlie could you keep it under wraps when Augers is around? I’m only saying this with the interest of the reserve in mind. I personally think the idea of you and Weasley is bloody brilliant. I’ll see you soon._

_Rob_

Charlie finished the letter and looked back up at Jess. There was so much to register—so much information in one letter. First things first, the reserve wasn’t getting shut down…not yet at least. The head of the Department was coming to their reserve! That was going to be interesting to say the least. And Chase saw him and Jessica kissing! Charlie could have sworn Chase was nowhere to be seen last night. And the fact that Charlie and Jess had kissed could possibly jeopardize the reserve…that was just too much to bear.

Jessica was looking at Charlie expectantly. She was clearly waiting for his reaction. Charlie didn’t know what to say. There was just too much information to register everything. One thing was for sure, there was no way they could have a proper conversation in the cafeteria. Everyone seemed to be watching them, waiting for their reactions to the letter.

“Do you wanna take a walk?” he asked her. “We can talk better outside.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Jessica said getting up.

“Wait!” Lea said grabbing Jessica’s arm before Jess and Charlie could leave. “Could you at least tell us whether we’re all about to lose our jobs or not?”

“The head of the Department is coming to see the reserve,” Charlie told her and with that he and Jess hurried quickly out of the cafeteria.

“That was a lot to take in,” Charlie said as soon as they were out of the suffocating room.

“Tell me about it,” Jess sighed in agreement. “I can’t believe Augers is really coming here.”

“Have you met her?” Charlie asked curiously.

“Only once,” Jess sighed. “Maria Augers is rather unique. Granted, I only met her once but she didn’t seem like the nicest person but she wasn’t cruel either. I can’t really explain it. I got the impression she’s rather good at her job though. Something tells me she’ll be fair in her judgment of the reserve.”

“That’s a relief,” Charlie grinned.

“That’s just my personal opinion,” Jessica reminded him. She looked a little worried but Charlie wasn’t.

“I trust your opinion. It’s generally a good one,” he told her smiling. Jess smiled back but it wasn’t her natural smile. There was something on her mind, Charlie could tell.

"Charlie I—“ Jess started to talk but then broke off seemingly at a loss for words.

“Are we going to talk about what happened last night?” Charlie blurted out. He couldn’t help it. It was practically all he’d been able to think about.

“Yeah, sure, alright yeah,” Jess agreed hesitantly. “But before you go and get yourself all mad at me I just want to warn you that I’m complete rubbish at this whole ‘let’s talk about our feelings thing’.”

“S’alright. I’m not that great at the whole ‘let’s talk about our feelings thing’ either,” Charlie assured her with a small smile. “I think I made it pretty clear how I feel about you last night,” Charlie began. “But just in case there’s any confusion, I like you Jess. I really like you. And I care about you, probably a bit more than I should but I can’t help that.”

“I like you too Charlie…it’s just what kind of future could we possibly have? I was only supposed to be here for two months originally. And now it’s looking like my stay here will be even shorter. I care for you, don’t think that I don’t. It’s just I don’t see how we could possibly move forward from here,” Jessica told him.

Hearing her say that was a bit bittersweet for Charlie. He was elated to hear that Jess had feelings for him. He’d been hoping that she would for quite some time now. But the fact that she couldn’t envision a future for them was problematic.

“I don’t know what to tell you. To be quite honest I don’t think we can ever be sure of the future. Right now I don’t really know what’s going to happen to the reserve from here on out. If the reserve goes down I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know much of anything right now,” Charlie said with a laugh. “What I do know is that I want to be with you.”

Charlie hadn’t really considered having a relationship with Jess until he said it just then. He didn’t even know that was what he wanted until he was saying it out loud. But there was no denying it. Charlie wanted to be with Jessica. She was just so bloody irresistible. She was smart, sexy, fun, independent. He’d never met any one like her. Charlie looked over at Jess.

She seemed to be very deep in thought. Although, Charlie wasn’t sure what she could possibly have to think about. As far as feelings were concerned Charlie didn’t see any decision that had to be made. Either she liked him or she didn’t. Either she wanted to be with him or she didn’t.

“I do want to be with you,” Jess began. “I haven’t felt this way about anyone else…ever really. And I don’t want to pass this up I just don’t know how things could work out.”

“Jess,” Charlie said taking her hands. “Do yourself a favor and stop over thinking everything. Just take a step back, give your brain a rest, and let your heart do the talking alright?” Jessica nodded and moved closer to him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Charlie wondered if when she opened her eyes she would have her mind made up. He decided he didn’t really want to wait to find out. He let go of her hands and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

“Charlie, I’m thinking,” Jessica warned him, her eyes still closed.

“What did I just say about thinking?!” Charlie exclaimed with a laugh.

“I’ve never been any good at listening when people tell me what to do,” Jess laughed.

“Well if you’re insistent on this thinking thing then at least let me try and persuade you,” Charlie suggested.

He placed a light kiss on her lips. Jess laughed and allowed him to deepen the kiss. Charlie felt himself relax into her and for a few minutes everything else seemed to melt away. The drama at the reserve, Chase and his stupidity, none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was Jess.

When they broke apart Jessica took another deep breath before opening her eyes. She made no motion to move out of his arms and Charlie took that as a good sign. She looked up at him.

“So how’s the thinking going?” he asked jokingly. Jess leaned back so she could look him in the eyes.

“When I’m with you it just feels,” Jess paused, waiting for the word to fill the gap. Charlie wondered what she was going to say. It feels…nice, weird, different, boring…the possibilities were endless. “When I’m with you it just feels right.” Jessica finally said. Charlie couldn’t help the huge grin that spread on his face. “Now that I’m here it finally feels like I’m doing things right,” Jessica continued. “I just hope that Chase doesn’t go and screw it up.”

“Me too,” Charlie agreed. “So where do we go from here?” Charlie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jess admitted with a small smile. “I just know that wherever I go—I want to go there with you.” Charlie smiled. “Oh my god! That was so cheesy, I take it back!” Jessica exclaimed sounding rather horrified. Charlie laughed.

“Nope you already said it. You can’t take it back now!”

“I hate you,” Jessica muttered with a frown. Charlie couldn’t help laughing.

“Nah, you could never hate me,” Charlie said with a confident grin. He suddenly remembered one of the lines from Robert’s letter and the grin fell off his face. “You have no idea how badly I want to run around the reserve telling everyone that I get to be with you but I don’t think we should tell anyone yet.” Jessica nodded her head in agreement.

“It would probably be best if we acted like the past couple of hours didn’t happen,” she agreed. Charlie’s face seemed to fall even more. He didn’t want to pretend like the past few hours didn’t happen. The past few hours had been some of his happiest. “When other people are around,” Jess added upon seeing the look on Charlie’s face.

“I’m so glad you added that last bit in,” he said with a laugh. “Now at least I still get to kiss you—I just have to make sure no one’s around.”

“Yeah, and make sure Chase isn’t lurking anywhere in the corner,” Jess added jokingly.

“Yeah what was that about?!” Charlie exclaimed. “Clearly he was being weird and watching us.”

“He’s a creep,” Jess agreed.

“Well at least we’re in agreement on his creep status,” Charlie said. He was enjoying their happy banter.

“We should probably get back inside,” Jessica said finally.

“Must we?” Charlie groaned.

“We must,” Jess sighed. She leaned up and kissed him quickly before wriggling out of his arms and running back to the cafeteria. Charlie laughed and raced after her.

* * *

 

The rest of the day seemed to go by in blur. Jess and Charlie watched over the team of interns as they worked with Jamaya. She was much more tame now that she was eating her daily dosage of lettuce. Charlie and Jessica were on their way back to dinner when Eric Wentworth intercepted their path.

“Weasley!” he called out to them. Eric was running over from one of the office buildings. “Schmidt wants to see us in OB1.”

“Now?” Charlie asked as his stomach gave a growl. He was really hungry. Charlie hated missing meals.

“Yes now. Maria Augers is here. She wants to talk to you and Jess about everything,” Eric explained. Jess looked over at Charlie upon hearing her name.

“I suppose we don’t have much of a choice then,” Charlie sighed.

He motioned for the group of interns to keep walking on to dinner. He turned to Jess who just shrugged her shoulders as they began walking to the office buildings. Eric led them to where Schmidt, Chase, Lea, Jake, Rob, and Maria Augers were all gathered. Jake and Lea smiled over at them when Charlie and Jess entered the room.

“Ah, Weasley, Sloan there you are,” Schmidt acknowledged their arrival. Eric shuffled into the room behind them.

“I take it you’re Charlie Weasley and Jessica Sloan then,” Maria Augers said to the pair of them.

“Yes M’am,” Charlie said remembering the manners his mother had instilled in him.

“Yes,” Jessica said firmly fixing Augers with a firm look.

“Excellent, I was just telling the others I want to speak with each of you individually for at least ten minutes before the night is over. Tomorrow I will be here on the reserve trying to determine what to make of this situation,” Augers explained. She glanced over at Schmidt who nodded. “Alright then seeing as I’ve already heard from Sloan and Roland I’ll take the other Sloan next.” Jessica nodded her approval. “Follow me,” Augers said as she walked into one of the rooms down the hall. Jessica did just that.

The pair of them was only gone for about twenty minutes but to Charlie it felt like an eternity. He wondered what they could possibly be talking about in there. What could Augers ask Jess that would take twenty minutes to explain. He was getting anxious by the time Augers and Jess finally reappeared.

“Mr. Wentworth if you please?” Augers said as Jess walked wordlessly over to where Charlie was sitting down. She sat down next to him as Eric and Augers disappeared. Charlie looked over at Jess expectantly.

“What did she ask you about?” Charlie wanted to know. Jessica laughed.

“You sound so worried,” she said, “It’s not like it was an interrogation. She just asked me about my reports and about the fight between Jake and Chase.”

“That’s it?” Charlie asked in surprise.

“That and some other things. Let’s not get into it now though alright,” Jess said shooting Charlie a pointed look.

He’d forgotten that they were in a room full of people. Whenever he talked to Jessica it was as if they were the only two people in the room. She was that entrancing. Charlie looked around the room. Jake and Lea were sitting back in their chairs, seemingly quite relaxed. Schmidt was sitting at the desk in the corner of the room reading through some paperwork. Rob was talking to Jake and Chase sulked off in the corner as usual.

“I haven’t seen my family all day,” Charlie mused. “I hope they don’t think I’ve abandoned them.”

"They probably found some way to occupy themselves,” Jess said shrugging her shoulders. Charlie still felt guilty for not spending a lot of time with his family when they came all the way to Romania to visit him. As he was getting lost in his thoughts Wentworth came back and told Lea to go talk to Augers.

“What did you guys talk about?” Rob asked Eric. Eric just shrugged his shoulders. He’d only been with Augers for ten minutes, maybe even less.

“She just asked me what kind of work I did here, whether I enjoyed my job, and about the fight but nothing else,” Eric explained. Everyone nodded talking all the information in.

“Honestly, this is ridiculous,” Jake said to no one in particular.

The entire room was essentially in agreement. They couldn’t believe the nerve of Chase to go running off to the ministry with the sole intention of taking down the reserve. Lea was gone for a little bit longer than Eric was. When she came back she was almost laughing. Charlie was surprised. She motioned for Jake to go in the room next.

“What’s so funny?” Jessica asked as Lea sat down next to her.

“Augers was bloody hilarious,” Lea said. Jess raised an eyebrow at her. Clearly they had not gotten the same impressions of the head of the department.

“What did she ask you about?” Charlie asked for what felt like the hundredth time that evening.

“My job, Chase, the fight, Jake, you, Jess. We mostly just talked though. I’m not too worried about the reserve getting shut down anymore,” Lea informed the group. This was rather surprising to everyone in the room.

“Maybe she was just using a different questioning tactic?” Eric suggested.

“Maybe,” Lea said shrugging her shoulders.

She seemed rather indifferent. It unnerved Charlie. He could tell that Jess was bothered too. Jake came back after about ten minutes and finally it was Charlie’s turn to get questioned. He walked down the hallway to the only room with its door open. Maria Augers was sitting down in a chair, waiting for him.

“Have a seat Mr. Weasley,” she said motioning for him to sit down in the chair across from hers. Charlie sat down in the uncomfortable looking chair.

“You can call me Charlie,” he told her. He hated when people called him Mr. Weasley. To Charlie, Mr. Weasley would always be his dad.

“Very well,” Augers said. “So tell me about your job here on the reserve.” Judging from what the others had said she’d asked them all the same question.

“Well, I’m a dragon keeper,” Charlie said feeling rather stupid. It was obvious to him what a dragon keeper did. And Augers must have heard the same explanation several times. “We tend to the dragons. Feed them, take care of them, study them, watch over them, play with them. You name it.”

“Play with them?” Augers asked raising an eyebrow.

“Er well, yeah,” Charlie muttered recognizing his mistake. The keepers weren’t really supposed to play with the dragons. But occasionally there would be a really well behaved dragon that just bonded with the keepers. Charlie and some of the more daring keepers would play with them. “I mean not everyone does. I do…just cause if I were a dragon I would hate to be stuck sitting around all day. I’d want to er, have some fun.”

“Interesting,” Augers said scribbling something down on a pad of paper in her lap. She reminded Charlie of Jessica when Jess had first gotten to the reserve. She was always making comments and then scribbling things down in her notepad. “Do you like working here?”

“I love it,” Charlie replied without hesitation. Augers nodded her head and kept the questions coming.

“Did you witness the fight between Chase Roland and Jake Henderson?” Charlie nodded. “Could you please describe what happened?”

“Chase was treating Lea like rubbish. We were at dinner and he was talking to her in such a degrading manner. He’d been acting off all week and it was getting on everyone’s nerves. Jake, he’s been in love with Lea for centuries, well he couldn’t stand watching Chase treat Lea so poorly. So he just sort of snapped. First they argued verbally and then Jake punched Chase. Chase punched him back. They had it out for a bit and then I pulled Jake off of Chase. That was the end of that.”

As Charlie gave his version of the story Augers wrote everything he said down. Charlie supposed that she was trying to get an accurate account of what really happened that night.

“Ever since then Chase has been rotten. He’s had a grudge. He wanted to hurt us. That’s why he hates the reserve so much,” Charlie couldn’t help adding.

“Thank you for your opinion Mr. Weasley,” she said.

“Charlie,” he corrected without thinking.

“Right Charlie, I have one more question for you before you go,” Augers told him. Charlie nodded and waited for her to ask. He had a feeling what she was going to ask him about before she even opened her mouth. “What is the nature of your relationship with Jessica Sloan?”

Even though he’d been prepared for Augers to ask him about Jess he had no idea what to say to such a question. In all honesty Charlie had no idea how to describe his relationship with Jess.

“I’m not sure,” Charlie admitted. “I mean we hated each other at the beginning of this,” he said with a laugh. “I thought she was awful and she couldn’t stand to look at me for more then five seconds. But I dunno, somewhere down the line we got to be friends. I care about her a great deal. I’ll admit that we, er, kissed but that’s it really,” Charlie concluded.

“Did you ever try to manipulate Miss Sloan into writing good reviews of the reserve?” Augers asked. That question had caught him off guard.

“What?! No, of course not!” Charlie exclaimed. He hoped Augers could tell that his response was genuine. “I think that’s what the guys had wanted me to do but I couldn’t manipulate Jess even if I tried. She’s not the kind of person who lets other people tell her what to do. I just did my job M’am. Schmidt asked me to show Jess how great the reserve was and I did just that.”

“Well thank you that will be all,” Augers said.

Charlie took that to be a dismissal and he got up and practically ran out of the room. He decided Jess was right. Augers wasn’t nice or cruel she was just…objective. She’d asked all the right questions and she didn’t appear to be leaning one way or the other. He hoped that Augers would evaluate the reserve fairly. His way of life depended on it.

Charlie walked back into the lobby area where his friends were waiting for him. Schmidt was still doing paperwork. Rob and Eric were talking, laughing, and probably joking about something. Charlie didn’t know how they could be so lighthearted when the reserve was near collapse. As per usual, Chase was sitting off to the corner reading something and not talking to anyone. Jess and Lea were talking while Jake listened in earnest.

Suddenly Maria Augers appeared in the doorway to the lobby. Schmidt looked up from his work to see her and everyone spun around to see what he was looking at. Maria Augers took in the scene before here. Eight faces were looking at her expectantly. They were all watching her with baited breath as if they were waiting for her next move.


	8. Jessica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fate of the reserve hangs in the balance and Charlie and Jessica fight for what they care about.

“I need to take some time to try and figure out what I’m going to do about this situation,” Augers informed the group.

That didn’t sound too bad to Charlie, although it didn’t sound too good either.

“We still have representatives at the other two reserves who are reporting back to me. As far as I know nothing this,” Maria paused trying to find the right word, “controversial has occurred.” Charlie frowned. That definitely did not sound good. “Be that as it may, nothing is decided at this point. I’m going to be here for the next day or so and evaluate what’s going on.”

“That sounds good,” Schmidt said, already on his feet walking over to Maria Augers.

Eric Wentworth nodded in agreement. It was the best that they could hope for. They weren’t being shut down yet. Yet, being the key word. Augers nodded her head and disappeared to Merlin knows where. Everyone else turned to look at Schmidt.

“Take the rest of the day off,” Schmidt told the group.

Charlie’s jaw literally dropped in shock. Never in the history of ever, had Schmidt once given him the day off.

“I know you all must be pretty stressed out. Just relax. Go back to Tent City and hang out. Do whatever. I’ve gotta go do some things.” And with that Schmidt was off.

Charlie turned to look at Jake and Lea. They wore the same shocked expression that he had.

“I can’t believe he just gave us the rest of the day off,” Lea said. She sounded slightly awed when she spoke. Jake nodded in agreement.

“Me either,” Charlie agreed. It was unheard of.

“It’s barely even half a day,” Jess commented completely unimpressed with what had just occurred. “You guys must be so stressed. You deserve more than half a day off.”

“We never get days off,” Jake told her. Jess looked scandalized.

“I wouldn’t say never,” Lea added hastily. “If we ask for a day off in advance they will take that into consideration when they make the schedules. It’s just hard to give spontaneous days off when the smoothness of the program requires a schedule.” Jess nodded taking what Lea said in.

“Let’s go back to Tent City,” Charlie suggested.

He figured he should probably say hi to his family. They probably didn’t like being left alone when they’d come all this way just to visit him. Pretty much everyone was in agreement so they began to make their way back to the tents.

Jake and Lea broke off and made their way over to the keepers’ tent. They were undoubtedly slipping off into Jake’s room for a good session of snogging. Jess and Charlie kept walking until they got to the tent where the Weasleys were staying.

“Oh Charlie I’m so glad we caught you. We’re about to head off,” his mother exclaimed as Charlie and Jess walked into the tent.

“Already?” Charlie asked, surprise evident in his voice.

“Yes, well your father could only get so many days off work. And I hardly ever get to see you but I don’t really want to send him home alone,” Molly Weasley began ranting.

Charlie recognized the speech. She’d given it to him many times before. His mother often tried to make Charlie feel guilty for not coming home to visit his family as often as she would like. Charlie decided to cut his mother’s speech short. He really wasn’t in the mood for it. So he made the usual empty promise.

"Okay mum, I’ll try to visit more often.”

Molly Weasley gave her son a scrutinizing look. She never believed his promises that he would visit home more often. He looked to his right, expecting to see Jess standing next to him but Charlie was surprised to see Bill just packing his suitcase. Jessica was in the corner of the tent talking to Ginny. Charlie couldn’t help grinning at the sight of the pair of them; two of the girls that he cared the most about in the world getting along so well.

Still smiling, Charlie walked over to say goodbye to his father and Bill. Charlie then looked over at Ginny and Jessica. Ginny’s suitcase was still open on the floor. She had stopped packing it halfway through, having decided she really didn’t want to leave the reserve.

“You can always come back and visit any time you want,” Jessica was telling Ginny in an attempt to get her to finish packing up.

“Promise?” Ginny asked skeptically. Jessica glanced over at Charlie and shrugged her shoulders.

“We promise,” Charlie told his little sister.

“Alright then,” Ginny sighed grabbing the rest of her belongings and cramming them into the suitcase.

Molly watched her daughter smash her unfolded clothes into a pile with a frown on her face. When Ginny wasn’t looking Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand at the mound of clothing in the suitcase and the clothes were suddenly folded into neat piles. Ginny didn’t even notice the difference.

After about five more minutes the Weasley family was finally ready to leave the reserve. It had been nice seeing his family at the reserve but Charlie was ready for them to go. He loved when his parents and siblings came for visits but the reserve was getting slightly chaotic with the whole situation with the Department. Charlie didn’t want his family to have to be at the reserve during such a stressful time. He couldn’t imagine it being very fun for them.          

Charlie gave his mother one last hug. He and Jessica then stepped back as the Weasleys gathered around the portkey Schmidt had arranged to take them home. Charlie watched as the members of his family all grabbed on to an issue of the Dailey Prophet. Ginny let go to wave goodbye to Charlie and Jessica but Molly grabbed her daughter’s hand and got Ginny to touch the portkey just in time for it’s departure. The Weasleys disappeared into thin air.

“What do you feel like doing on your day off?” Jessica asked turning to look at Charlie. Charlie thought about it for a moment. He wasn’t quite sure what he felt like doing. Outside Jake was teaching Lea, Rob, Eric, and Colin all about the muggle sport soccer. However, Charlie didn’t have the energy to join the game.

“I feel like relaxing,” Charlie informed her.

He led Jess into the common room area of the keepers’ tent. Because it was such a beautiful day the area was quiet and deserted. “Excellent!” Charlie exclaimed collapsing onto his favorite couch. He lay sprawled out on his back staring up at the ceiling. Jess sat down next to his legs.

“The past few days finally catching up with you?” she asked with a slight hint of amusement in her voice.

“I’m losing energy in my old age,” Charlie joked. Jessica laughed and shook her head.

“You Quidditch players never lose energy,” she said thinking of Rob and his endless supply.

“Not true. All the pros are dead tired after a good day of training,” Charlie pointed out with a laugh. “If I’d gone and played for England my career would practically be over by now.”

“You were going to play for England?” Jessica asked in shock. She was surprised that he’d been internationally recruited.

“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” Charlie said with a chuckle.

“I’m just really impressed,” Jessica told him resting her elbows on his now raised knees. “You must be amazing.” Charlie just shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not that good anymore,” he sighed. “If I’d gone to play right out of school when they wanted me I suppose I still would be but it’s been years since I played competitively.”

“That’s still really impressive,” Jess insisted.

Charlie shrugged off her compliment but he was pleased. Charlie knew that Jessica Sloan was not easily impressed. He took pleasure in the fact that she was impressed with him. Charlie stretched out his legs and the movement caused Jess to lose her balance and fall onto his legs. She shot him a look, which he ignored. Charlie just pulled her closer to him so that she was lying on his stomach. Jessica narrowed her eyes at him but Charlie could tell she didn’t mind his actions.

“I would hate to think Quidditch is the only way I could impress you,” Charlie told her jokingly.

“I’m sure you’re clever enough to think of other ways,” Jess assured him. Charlie smirked at her.

“A few things do come to mind now that you mention it,” he said with a devilish grin.

Charlie kissed her before she knew what he was doing. He could feel Jess smile into the kiss and it floored him. Charlie could have spent the rest of the day kissing Jessica but he really was tired. Apparently Jessica was too because she eventually came to rest her head on his stomach.

“It would appear that my old age has stolen my energy as well,” Jess sighed as she closed her eyes.

“I could fall asleep right now,” Charlie agreed. And without further ado Charlie and Jessica decided their afternoon off would be best spent napping. Jess fell asleep still sprawled out on Charlie and he in turn fell asleep on the couch.

As Charlie drifted in and out of consciousness he realized several things. Firstly, he could really get used to napping with Jessica Sloan in his arms. Second, he was in trouble. Charlie had developed incredibly strong feelings for Jessica; stronger than he’d believed he was capable of. And yet, part of him knew it wouldn’t last. Jess wasn’t going to be at the reserve forever. She was going to have to leave and go back to her real life. And then what?

What would Charlie do? He wasn’t quite sure. He had to figure out a way to get over her. There was no use in harboring romantic feelings for someone who didn’t even live in the same country as he did. And as much as Charlie wanted to attempt to keep a relationship going he knew Jess would never go for it. So Charlie would have to get over her. The only problem was, he didn’t want to.

* * *

The next morning Charlie’s entire life seemed to shift before his very eyes. Maria Augers announced that she would be going back to the Ministry and that it would no longer be necessary for Chase, Robert, and Jessica to stay at the reserve. No one knew what her announcement meant in regards to the fate of the reserve. In fact, it was even more frustrating because the Romanian Reserve was still uncertain as to it’s future. Augers was calling back the representatives from the other reserves and they were all going to sit down and make the decision as to which reserve was going to be shut down.

Augers arranged to have a portkey set up to return the three representatives and herself back to the Ministry later that evening. It was going to be Jessica Sloan’s last day on the reserve. Charlie was slightly panicked to say the least. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

He found Jess sitting with Lea outside of the keepers’ tent. The two of them had their heads bent down, deep in discussion. Lea looked extremely serious. It was a little bit unnerving. Lea was always carefree and upbeat. The somber, serious, Lea was almost downright alarming.

“Hey,” Charlie said walking over to the two of them. Lea and Jess looked up at him. Upon further inspection Jess looked just as serious as Lea. Lea looked extremely upset. “Are you two alright?” Charlie asked worriedly.

“Yeah,” Lea sighed heavily.

"You don’t sound okay,” Charlie observed.

“I’m just—oh I just—I don’t know,” Lea sputtered. She was clearly frustrated.

“Well now that you’ve explained it,” Charlie said with a laugh. Lea shot him an irritated look that instantly shut him up. “Sorry, sorry,” Charlie muttered hastily. “What’s bothering you?” Charlie asked, honestly worried.

“It’s just that—I don’t know if—I should probably,” Lea broke off looking rather distressed. She ran a hand threw her hair and sighed in aggravation. Jessica gave Lea a sympathetic look.

“Maybe you should just go talk to Jake,” Jessica suggested.

“I really should, shouldn’t I?” Lea decided.

“You really should,” Jessica urged. Charlie nodded his head in approval even though he had no idea what they were talking about.

“Alright I guess I’ll go find him then. I’ll see you guys later,” Lea said getting up in search of Jake.

“Okay what the hell is going on with her?” Charlie asked Jess once Lea was gone. Jessica sighed looking rather flustered herself.

“She’s just worried about what to do if the reserve gets shut down and some other things,” Jess informed him.

“Some other things?” Charlie prodded.

"Her and Jake,” Jess said with a shrug.

“Her and Jake?!” Charlie exclaimed. Was Lea rethinking her decision to be in a relationship with Jake? They couldn’t break up. That would completely destroy the friendship between Charlie, Jake, and Lea. And it would break Jake’s heart. Charlie didn’t think his friend would recover.

“Just about their future,” Jess sighed. “She’ll tell you eventually I suppose.” Charlie raised an eyebrow at Jess. It was weird that she knew things about his friends that he didn’t. “Charlie it’s a girl bonding kind of thing. I’m not about to tell you everything she told me. She confided in me.” Jessica laughed. Charlie frowned. He was dying to know what was going on.

“Well,” Charlie said in irritation. “Well, I hope it’s nothing bad.”

“I’m leaving tonight,” Jessica reminded him. It was rather out of the blue.

“Yeah, I heard,” Charlie sighed looking at his feet. He didn’t need reminding of that. He was still trying to come to terms with the fact that she was leaving.

“Sorry, Lea got me thinking about stuff and it reminded me and I just—I don’t—It’s,” Jessica trailed off. Charlie waited for her to finish the sentence but Jessica seemed to have run out of words.

“You’ve been spending too much time around Lea. Between the two of you maybe one day we’ll have an actual conversation,” Charlie said with a laugh. Jessica shot him a withering look.

“I’m trying to express my feelings here!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry,” Charlie mumbled holding back a laugh. Jess cracked a smile too.

“You know I’m complete rubbish about the whole talking about our feelings things,” Jessica sighed.

“Alright, alright, I’m not saying anything anymore until you finish,” Charlie promised.

“It’s just that Lea reminded me—we aren’t going anywhere,” Jess tried to explain the whirling thoughts inside her head. Charlie waited for her to continue but Jessica seemed to have given up on words again.

“So we’re not going anywhere?” Charlie wondered.

“Charlie I’m leaving tonight. I have to go back to my real life. Where I work. In _France_. France is not Romania. You work in Romania. Do you see where I’m going with this?” Jessica asked looking at him imploringly.

Charlie looked at her and sighed exasperatedly. He’d been thinking along the same lines as Jessica the night before. What were they going to do now? There was no denying the fact that they had a connection. Charlie had never felt such a strong attachment to a person that wasn’t one of his family members, Jake or Lea. He didn’t want to have to say goodbye to Jessica but what choice did he have?

“I don’t want you to go,” he told her finally.

“There really isn’t much of a choice,” Jess sighed. “I really do care for you Charlie. I let myself get close to you even though we both knew it could only end badly. I just couldn’t help it…there’s something about you,” Jessica said with a laugh. “But I don’t know what we can do. I don’t know how beneficial it would be for me to be sitting in France wishing I were somewhere else.”

“I know,” Charlie said feeling defeated. The situation really was out of his hands. There wasn’t much of anything he could do to change things. “But I don’t know what else we can do. I’ve never felt so connected to someone before. I don’t want to lose you but I don’t see what other options we’ve got.”

Something changed in Jessica’s face. She fixed Charlie with a resolute look. It wasn’t cold but it wasn’t friendly either. She got up and Charlie mimicked her actions. Jessica frowned at him. Charlie got the feeling she was disappointed in him but he couldn’t quite figure out why.

“I should go pack my stuff,” Jess said excusing herself. Charlie watched as she disappeared into the tent. He sighed and set off in search of Jake and Lea. Charlie found his friends in one of the office buildings.

“Did you figure everything out?” Charlie asked Lea when he finally found them. Her odd behavior from before was still troubling him.

"Oh yes,” Lea said blushing at the memory of her stammering inability to speak before. “I was just a little flustered.”

“It happens to the best of us,” Charlie said with a smile.

“We’re going to get married,” Jake exclaimed with a grin.

Charlie’s eyebrows shot up in shock. The two of them had only started a romantic relationship two weeks ago. Charlie didn’t want to appear unsupportive but it was all happening way too fast. He stared at his two friends completely at a loss for words.

“I know it’s a bit fast,” Lea said when she saw the look on his face.

“A bit?” Charlie choked out.

“Let’s face it. We’ve been practically living together for five years now. I’ve loved Lea for ages,” Jake explained.

“And I’ve had feelings for Jake for almost as long,” Lea added.

“You have?!” Charlie exclaimed in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Charlie!” Lea exclaimed laughing. “You and Jake were my best friends but I wasn’t about to talk about my crushes with you. It’s more of a girl talk thing.”

“Anyways,” Jake continued. “We’ve been like family for five years. We’ve been in love with each other for the better part of those five years. And if the reserve closes down we can move back to England and start a family.”

Lea and Jake were grinning happily. Charlie couldn’t keep a smile off his face for long. Their smiles were infectious.

“Are you sure about this?” Charlie asked. Jake and Lea both nodded their heads enthusiastically. “It’s not some rash decision you made because you think the reserve is going to be shut down?”

“Well obviously that had some influence but it would have happened sooner or later,” Lea said with a shrug.

“And if the reserve doesn’t shut down we can still enjoy the benefits of married life,” Jake said suggestively. Charlie rolled his eyes but he was convinced. If Jake and Lea were happy Charlie was behind their decision one hundred percent.

“So now you’re engaged?” Charlie wondered.

“I suppose so,” Jake said with a shrug. “Although I reckon I probably should have proposed or something.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Lea said rolling her eyes. “I will physically harm you if you ever get down on one knee and try to put jewelry on me.” Jake shrugged his shoulders and Charlie laughed. The way the two of them were going about this was rather unique but seemingly fitting for their relationship.

“So where did Jess go?” Jake asked as the three friends started walking back to their tent. “I’m surprised to see you without her.”

“We’re not always together,” Charlie protested.

“You’ve been bloody inseparable,” Lea said laughing. Charlie sighed and told his friends about his conversation with Jess before. He gave them a pretty detailed account of what had been said and done.

“Merlin Charlie you’re an idiot,” Jake said shaking his head.

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked feeling rather confused. He had thought that he’d handled the situation rather well.

"Isn’t it obvious?!” Lea exclaimed.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Charlie said shaking his head.

“Men are so daft,” Lea sighed. “She’s cross with you.”

“Why?” Charlie wanted to know.

“I bet she’s already left the reserve. Probably didn’t even bother waiting for that portkey,” Jake added.

As it turned out Jake was absolutely correct. Jessica was nowhere to be found. Charlie had looked everywhere. Finally Rob put him out of his misery by telling Charlie that his sister had already gone back to France.

“I don’t get it,” Charlie said to Lea who just rolled her eyes at him.

“It’s so obvious Charlie. She wanted you to fight for her,” Lea explained. Charlie just looked at her. “She wanted you to ask her to stay. She wanted you to show that you actually cared.”

“But she knew I cared!” Charlie protested.

“I don’t know about that,” Lea disagreed. “You have this very relaxed air about you. You come across as very nonchalant about a lot of things. And judging from what you told me about your conversation you seemed rather apathetic towards the dissolving of your relationship.”

“Well I’m not bloody apathetic!” Charlie argued. “I’m pissed off. Why do women have to be so bloody confusing?!” Lea laughed as she shook her head.

“I’m sorry Charlie but even Jake caught on and you know how he’s always got his head up in the clouds. I think it was rather obvious. You seem to have missed the point on this one.”

Charlie left his friends feeling rather put out and angry. He couldn’t remember ever having been in such a bad mood. It didn’t help that one person he wanted to vent to was nowhere to be found. It also just so happened that the one person who he wanted to vent to was partially the source of his anger. Why couldn’t she just have come out and tell him how she felt?

Then again, Jessica had never been one for sharing her feelings. Charlie had known this about her from the very beginning. Charlie sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the whole thing. He shouldn’t be thinking about girls right now. Charlie had more important things to be worried about. The reserve was on the verge of collapse and here he was worried about his romantic issues.

Charlie spent the majority of the afternoon moping back in the keepers’ tent. He didn’t quite feel like doing much else. He was in an unbearably bad mood and Jake and Lea seemed to have made a mutual decision to ignore him. He was so irritated with Jessica for not talking to him. But he was even angrier at himself for not realizing that she’d wanted to talk. He finally left the confines of his tent around dinnertime. He was upset but he wasn’t about to start skipping meals.

“You’ve decided to resurface?” Jake asked when Charlie took his usual seat.

“A man’s gotta eat,” Charlie said shrugging his shoulders. Lea shook her head but Charlie could see that she was smiling.

“Hey guys I just wanted to tell you that I’m heading off,” Robert Sloan said as he walked over to them.

“Already?” Lea asked. “You’re not even going to eat dinner?”

“Ah, well seeing as Jess already left I figured I should get going,” Rob said casually avoiding looking Charlie. 

“Well it was really great to meet you,” Jake said shaking Rob’s hand. Lea smiled and did the same. Charlie offered Rob a curt nod.

“I expect you’ll be hearing from one of us soon,” Rob hinted. Charlie wasn’t quite sure what Rob meant by that. Did that mean the Department had already made a decision about the reserve?

“Looking forward to it,” Lea said with a smile as Robert left. 

“Was it me or did it sound like they’ve already made up their minds about the reserve?” Jake asked looking at his friends.

“It did sound a lot like it,” Lea nodded thoughtfully. “But they can’t have!” she said shaking her head. “It’s too soon. I don’t think they’ve even talked to the reps at the other reserves. It’s just too fast!” Jake and Charlie considered what had been said in the past five minutes. If Robert didn’t mean that the decision was already made what could he have meant?

* * *

A week went by and there was still no word from any of the representatives. Robert Sloan had assured them that they would be hearing from him soon but so far nothing had occurred. The reserve was in a state of limbo. Schmidt didn’t know what to do. He tried to keep everything operating as normal as he could but everyone felt the question of the reserve’s future hanging over their heads.

Jake and Lea were officially engaged. Despite Lea’s protests Jake had insisted on getting down on one knee and proposing to her the old fashioned way. Charlie suspected that Lea was secretly glad. As much as Charlie loved his friends it was getting rather annoying to always be with the happy couple. Charlie found himself wanting to spend time with someone else; someone who appeared to have left his life for good.

“Why don’t you just try sending her a letter or something?” Lea asked after the third time Charlie brought up Jessica Sloan.

Charlie had thought about writing to her but he’d discarded the idea almost instantly. He had no idea what he would say. _Hey Jess, sorry I got you mad at me because I suck at expressing my feelings. I miss you. Throw away your job and come live in Romania with me._ Charlie shook his head at the thought. That would not go over so well with Miss Sloan.

Then after almost two weeks without a word from the Ministry an unexpected visitor arrived on the reserve. Jessica Sloan was back. Charlie saw her walk into the cafeteria during breakfast one morning. She was headed straight for Schmidt. With a pang, Charlie noticed that she had gone back to wearing her uptight business looking clothes. However, her hair wasn’t in that terrible bun so maybe there was still hope.

“Hey is that Jess?” Lea asked following Charlie’s gaze to Schmidt’s table. Jake peered over their heads to see.

“Looks like it,” Jake affirmed.

“I wonder if that means they’ve made a decision about the reserve,” Lea mused.

Suddenly, Charlie didn’t have an appetite. If Jessica was back it _had_ to mean that they’d made a decision about the reserve. There was no other reason for her to be back there. He wished that Jessica had thought to write him and let him know what had happened.

Charlie, Jake, and Lea watched as Jessica and Schmidt engaged in an apparently very serious discussion. They talked and talked and then finally Schmidt got up and led Jessica out of the cafeteria.

“C’mon let’s go!” Jake exclaimed leaping up and running after them. Charlie and Lea followed suit. The three friends kept their distance from Schmidt and Jessica but they absolutely had to know what the decision was.

“And the decision is final?” Schmidt asked Jessica in a business-like manner.

“Absolutely,” she said nodding her head in affirmation.

“The Committee won’t reconsider? There won’t be any more reevaluations?” Schmidt implored. Charlie exchanged a nervous look with Jake. That didn’t sound good. If Schmidt was asking about reconsiderations…

“Nope,” Jessica said shaking her head. “I fought very hard to create these circumstances. I can assure you that there will never be another evaluation at this reserve.” Charlie’s jaw dropped. Jessica had fought very hard to get the reserve shut down?! It didn’t make any sense. Charlie thought that she was having a good time. She’d told him so herself. She said the reserve had changed her. Had she been lying to him this whole time?

Furious, Charlie stalked away from his friends. He was blinded by anger. Charlie paid no heed to where he was going. He just knew that he had to get as far away from Jessica Sloan as possible.

“Charlie!” Lea called out to his retreating back. But Charlie didn’t want sympathy from his friends. He couldn’t believe Jessica would lie to him like that. It was such a cruel thing to do. He was losing everything. Without the reserve Charlie had nothing.

Without even realizing it Charlie had walked to Jamaya’s quarters. The fireball roared at him in greeting. Jamaya looked at him expectantly. She was probably expecting him to whip out some lettuce and start feeding her.

“Sorry girl I don’t have anything for you today,” Charlie told her apologetically. Jamaya seemed to glare at him. Or maybe Charlie was just imagining things. The dragon just looked at him patiently.

Charlie sat down on a rock close by where Jamaya lay down on the fields. He regarded the dragon thoughtfully. Jamaya used to be downright impossible to manage. But ever since Jessica discovered that Jamaya was a vegetarian the dragon had been much more agreeable. It didn’t make sense. Why had Jessica helped him and the reserve so much while she was there if she was only going to head back to the Ministry and try to get it shut down.

“Women,” Charlie said to the dragon, “are the most confusing creatures ever to walk this planet. Dragons, Manticores, and Hippogriffts I can handle but women…forget about it.” Jamaya just let out a snort of fire. Charlie got the impression that she was laughing at him.

“You would find my problems amusing,” Charlie said to Jamaya. “But I’ll have you know I was the only one who stood up for you when all the other keepers called you names.”

“You are truly the only person I know who would attempt to have a conversation with a dragon.” Charlie jumped and spun around in surprise. Standing right behind him was none other than Jessica Sloan. “I thought I might find you here.” She said to him. Charlie only glared at her.

“How could you?” he asked angrily.

“How could I what?” Jessica wondered. She was pretending to look confused.

"Are you really going to stand there and act like you don’t know what I’m talking about?” Charlie asked her with a frown.

“Charlie I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessica said earnestly.

"You got the reserve shut down!” he exclaimed.

"What?! No I didn’t!” Jessica yelled in surprise. “How could you even say such a thing? You know I would never do that!”

“I fought very hard to create these circumstances. I can assure you that there will never be another evaluation at this reserve,” Charlie said repeating her words from earlier, verbatim.

“Eavesdrop much?” Jessica asked sarcastically.

“You aren’t denying it?” Charlie countered.

“If you hadn’t run off like an idiot you would have heard Schmidt announce to the whole cafeteria that the reserve had passed the evaluation. You would have heard the announcement that Chase Roland got fired for trying to sabotage the evaluation process. You would have heard Schmidt tell everyone that Robert and I were promoted and that we worked our asses off for a whole week so that the reserve would stay open and never be considered for shutting down ever again!” Jessica exclaimed angrily. She was glaring at him with such ferocity that she reminded Charlie briefly of a dragon.

Charlie was speechless. He had not been expecting that. Perhaps he shouldn’t have run off the way he had. Charlie blamed his Weasley red hair for his highly flammable temper. He wasn’t quite sure what to say and now Jessica was glaring daggers at him.

“That’s good news,” Charlie said finally. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions,” he added. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“Yeah, well you should be,” Jessica said defiantly rolling her eyes at him.

“I just thought with you being cross with me and all,” Charlie started to explain his thought process.

“When was I cross with you?” Jessica asked raising an eyebrow.

“When you left the reserve without saying a word of goodbye,” Charlie reminded her. Jessica rolled her eyes.

“Well of course I was cross with you. I gave you a perfectly good opportunity to make a move but you just sat back and let things happen. You didn’t even try to stop me from going Charlie. You didn’t even bother to fight for me. Of course I was cross with you. But just because I’m cross with you doesn’t mean that I would try and get the reserve shut down. I’m not Chase Roland I don’t seek petty revenge.” Jess said glowering at Charlie.

Charlie tried to process what had just been said but it was a lot to take in. He was still having trouble comprehending the fact that the reserve was still open and would never be in danger again.

“What did you want me to do?” Charlie asked finally. “There you were telling me how things were and I had to accept it.”

“No you didn’t!” Jessica retorted shaking her head. “You could have tried to find away to make things work!”

“Well why should I be the one who has to figure everything out? You didn’t try either. You just ran away. You always just run away from all your problems. It took you two bloody weeks before you would even talk to me like a normal human being!” Charlie exclaimed, all his frustration finally pouring out of him. Jessica fixed him with one of her cold stares. Charlie almost winced. It had been ages since she looked at him that way.

“I’m sorry,” he said feeling guilty under her cold gaze. “It’s just—I don’t have a lot of practice in this whole romantic business. It’s new to me and I don’t know what exactly I did to make you so angry but I suppose I could have tried harder to make you stay.” That was clearly more than Jessica had expected. The look on her face practically fell right off.

“I’m sorry too,” she hastened to apologize. “It’s always just been me and Rob I don’t really know how to care for other people. I’ve never actually cared about someone else that wasn’t related to me.”

“You care about me?” Charlie asked her with a cheeky grin.

“Of course I do!” she sighed exasperatedly. “You think I would have slaved away for a week trying to protect this place if I didn’t?” Charlie had never thought about things that way. He figured she just worked to keep the reserve open because she liked it there. He never suspected that he would have had anything to do with it.

“I care about you too,” Charlie found himself admitting. “I wasn’t just being nice to you so that you would write a good evaluation about the reserve. I genuinely care for you. I’ve never really had a connection like this with someone before. When you left all I wanted to do was go find you and talk to you.”

“So why didn’t you?” Jessica asked him. “Why didn’t you come find me?” Charlie raised an eyebrow at her.

“Somehow I don’t think you would have appreciated it if I turned up at your door demanding you quit your job and come live on the reserve with me,” Charlie laughed sarcastically.

“I might have,” Jessica admitted in a small voice.

“What?!” exclaimed Charlie, completely dumbfounded. Jessica just looked at him steadily. Charlie couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You would just drop everything like that?” he asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah. I told you before. When I’m with you, here, everything feels like it makes sense,” Jess reminded him.

“So why don’t you?” Charlie urged. “Quit the Ministry. Come live here on the reserve with me. That would make me the happiest person in all of Europe!”

“I’m not sure,” Jess sighed. “Rob and I were just promoted. And I don’t know if I could bring myself to leave Rob. We’re the only family each other has.”

“That’s not true!” Charlie insisted. “Family isn’t just the people we’re related to by blood. Family is everyone who cares about us. Jake, Lea, Reese, they’re my family here on the reserve. And if we were here together we would be each other’s family.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Jessica sighed heavily. “You’re bound to grow bored of me one day.” She added with a laugh.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Charlie said shaking his head. “Don’t go back. Stay here, with me.”

“And just live in the tent following you around everywhere?” Jessica asked with a laugh. “I wouldn’t have a job and I would just be in the way. “

“We’d work it out. We would make it work. Nothing else would matter because we would be together,” Charlie continued grabbing her hands in excitement. Jessica hesitated.

“I just don’t know Charlie,” she shook her head.

“Then let me persuade you,” he said smirking. Before Jessica could stop him Charlie leaned in and kissed her. “Think about it,” he said kissing her again. “You could live here on the reserve. You love it here, don’t even try to deny it.” He added kissing her neck. “And you could make even more discoveries about dragons.” Another kiss.

“Charlie!” Jessica gasped pushing him away. “I can’t think straight when you do that!” Charlie laughed.

“So then my plan is working.” He declared. “C’mon Jess, think about it. We could live here, together, forever.”

“Charlie,” said Jessica with a hint of warning in her voice.

“I’m serious!” he said earnestly.

“So am I,” she insisted taking another step back. Charlie laughed. “Don’t you laugh at me,” Jess said smiling despite herself. “You are making it very hard for me to think logically right now.”

“So don’t think logically!” Charlie exclaimed overcome with excitement. “Just go with your instincts. What do you really want to do?” Jessica regarded Charlie for a moment. She bit the corner of her lip apparently deep in thought. “Just think for a second…what do you want?”

“I want you,” Jessica admitted. Judging by the look on her face she’d surprised herself by saying that. She laughed and looked slightly abashed. Charlie smirked devilishly at her.

“So that answers your question,” Charlie declared happily.

“Does it?” Jess asked in mock wonderment.

“Of course it does,” Charlie said casually. He opened his mouth as if he were going to start talking again but Charlie was interrupted when Jake came running over to them.

“Charlie! Jess! Charlie!” Jake yelled doubling over panting. He’d clearly sprinted his way to where they were.

“What is it?” Charlie asked curiously.

“It’s” pant “Norberta” pant “eggs” pant “hatching!” Jake managed to choke out between breaths.

Charlie and Jessica exchanged looks of excitement before running off to where Norberta was currently hatching her eggs. The three of them were completely out of breath by the time Charlie, Jake, and Jessica reached Norberta.

“Oh good thing you got here now. You’re just in time,” Lea informed the trio as they approached the dragon. Norberta was eyeing the keepers warily as she prowled around in a circle guarding her eggs.

There was a small rattling noise and that signaled to Charlie that the first egg was ready to hatch. The egg began to shake and then suddenly a small crack appeared on the shell. The four friends watched as the crack lengthened and the shell broke even further. Slowly but surely a small baby Ridgeback began to climb its way out of the shell.           

The other four eggs began the same process. They started with small cracks and it wasn’t much later that there were five baby dragons crawling over to their mother. Norberta shot flames warningly in the direction of Charlie and his friends. It was as if she was telling them to keep away from her children.

“They’re beautiful!” Lea sighed wistfully.

“That was amazing,” Jess acknowledged. Charlie grinned at her. He knew he had her now. After seeing that there was no way she could turn down his offer to stay on the reserve.

“Jessica Sloan is that you?” Christopher Stevens was walking over to them apparently on his way back from collecting some sample or something.

“Hi Chris,” Jess greeted him.

“I heard you were back,” Chris said happily. “Listen when you’re done out here I really think you should head over to the lab. Dr. Bartlett has something he wants to talk to you about.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Jessica protested. Truth be told she wasn’t completely sold on the idea of staying on the reserve. Yes she loved it here and yes she wanted to be with Charlie. But was that worth giving up her job and her life? She would hardly ever get to see her brother if she decided to stay.

“It’s really important,” Chris insisted glancing significantly at Charlie. Charlie wasn’t sure what the meaning of that particular look was but he assumed it would be in his best interests to get Jess to talk to Dr. Bartlett. Charlie knew that Jessica loved everything Dr. Bartlett did on the reserve.

“You can go talk to him,” Charlie said to her. “Now that you’re staying you’ve got all the time in the world.” Jessica shot Charlie a look as if to say this conversation isn’t over, but ran off after Chris, unable to resist the chance to talk to the talented Dr. Bartlett.

Turning away from her retreating back Charlie focused on the young dragons before him.   They were hiccupping small flames as they looked around at their new world. Charlie couldn’t help smiling.   The idea of five more dragons on the reserve excited him very much. He couldn’t wait to start working with them.

* * *

Charlie eventually found Jessica sitting outside in the fields in front of the keepers’ tent. The night air supplied a pleasant breeze as she reclined on the palms of her hands staring at the sky. Jess was still wearing the business clothes she’d shown up to the reserve in but her shoes were tossed casually to the side. Charlie got an odd sense of déjà vu. This scene reminded him of Jessica’s first night on the reserve when she’d told him about growing up as an orphan. Just like he did that very first time Charlie settled himself down on the grass next to her.

"Nice night,” he observed casting his head skywards. The stars were shining as brightly as ever. Jessica looked over at him and laughed. “What?” Charlie wondered innocently.

“Déjà vu,” Jess acknowledged the similarity of the situation. Charlie chuckled to himself. “I guess everything has finally come full circle.”

“Does that mean you’ve made a decision about the reserve?” Charlie asked trying not to appear too pushy.

He didn’t want to pressure Jess into anything but he wanted an answer. It wasn’t as if Charlie couldn’t live on the reserve without her. Charlie loved the reserve more than anything. He would still be happy even if Jess decided to go back to France. But now that she’d come along and shown him how great his life was when he got to share it with someone he wanted her to stay. Jess however showed no signs of being ready to broach the topic in turn Charlie changed the subject.

“What did Dr. Bartlett want?” Charlie asked her.

“Just wanted a consultation on some experiment he was doing,” Jess said brushing the topic away.  So what did she want to talk about?

“Listen I know we both suck at the whole talking about our feelings thing but I think we have to do it,” Jess sighed.

“I suppose you’re right,” Charlie agreed.

“Okay I guess I’ll start,” Jessica said when Charlie didn’t begin talking. She paused to gather her thoughts. “Charlie I didn’t come to the reserve expecting any of this to happen. I thought it was just going to be another job. Get in, observe, report, and get out. But you changed all that. You got me involved with life here and I really do thank you for it. I never knew what I was missing out on.”

“Yeah well, it goes both ways. I loved living on the reserve before you came along. I didn’t think it could get any better. But then you came here and it did,” Charlie confessed with a small smile.

“I’ve never felt so close to another person before. It’s always been me and Rob looking out for each other. But you came along and changed all that too,” Jessica continued, encouraged by what Charlie had said.

“That’s me as well,” Charlie said in agreement. “I’ve never felt so connected to a person that wasn’t part of my family.”

“Charlie, I—I really like you,” Jessica told him. Her cheeks flushed with the confession. Charlie got the feeling she hadn’t said that to someone else before.

“I really like you too,” Charlie assured here.

“There’s something else,” Jess confessed. “Dr. Bartlett offered me a job.” Charlie felt his eyebrows go up in surprise.

“Did he now?” Charlie had definitely not been expecting that. “Well what did you say?” If Jess accepted Dr. Bartlett’s job that would mean she would be staying on the reserve!

“I told him I would think about it,” Jess sighed.

“Why? What could you possibly have to think about?” Charlie exclaimed. Sometimes she was just so bloody confusing. “Jess that’s like the perfect solution. You could stay here and you wouldn’t feel like a burden because you would have a job and we could stay together and—“ Charlie could barely contain himself. He only stopped talking because Jessica interrupted him.

“I told him I had to talk to you first,” Jessica revealed.

“Oh really? Why?” Charlie was honestly confused by her actions.

“I just wanted to tell you that I had feelings for you. And that this job has nothing to do with my staying here. I would have chosen to stay on the reserve whether or not Dr. Bartlett had offered me the job.” Charlie was relieved that Jessica was saying everything he’d wanted to hear.

“So you’re gonna stay?” Charlie wondered. He couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face. Jess nodded firmly; her grin mirroring his own.

“Wild hippogriffs couldn’t keep me away,” she said with a laugh.

Life on the reserve had suddenly gotten ten times better. Jess was staying. She was going to work there. Jessica wasn’t going anywhere. But then Charlie realized she’d only agreed to stay on the reserve after she’d gotten a job offer. After a moment’s pause she added, “Charlie I love it here on the reserve but I owe the great majority of my happiness to you. I wouldn’t want to be here if you weren’t.”

Convinced that Jess was making her decision for the right reason Charlie smiled at her. She laughed lightly and the evening seemed to brighten. Charlie had no idea how long the pair of them sat there grinning at each other but he did know one thing. For the first time since Charlie head heard the reserve was going to be evaluated everything felt right in the world.

* * *

 

Epilogue: One year later…

Charlie was rather rudely awakened by a pillow making violent contact with his head.

“Ouch! What the hell was that for?” Charlie demanded to know as he sat up rubbing his head.

“Charlie Weasley you would sleep through a mandrake screaming its head off. I’ve been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes,” Jessica exclaimed returning the pillow back to his bed.

“Why in the name of Merlin are you waking me up at,” Charlie paused to look at his watch, “eight a.m. on a Sunday morning?!”

“Because your best friends are getting married in an hour and you’re supposed to be the best man!” Jessica reminded him.

“Bloody hell!” Charlie yelled hopping out of bed. Jake was going to kill him. Charlie had completely forgotten that today was the big wedding day. Mentally cursing his abysmal memory, Charlie began a frantic search of his room. His dress robes had to be there somewhere.

“Closet top shelf,” Jess called out. She was sitting on his bed, already wearing her own dress robes. Charlie thanked her before yanking his robes on over his head. He attacked his hair with a brush and rummaged through his bedside drawer until he found his wand.

“Ready!” Charlie declared happily.

“Shoes,” Jessica reminded him.

“Shoes, right,” Charlie muttered scanning his closet for his nice shoes he’d bought just for this wedding. “I had them two days ago. I know they’re around here somewhere.” Jessica flicked her wand and suddenly his shoes came zooming out from under his bed. Charlie slid them on his feet and gave his girlfriend a quick kiss on her cheek for thanks. She just shook her head.

“Ready for sure this time,” Charlie announced. Jessica hopped off the bed and together they made their way over to the sectioned off area of the reserve where Jake and Lea were to be married.

“Charlie!” Jake exclaimed happily spotting his best friend. Some of the guests had already started to arrive and Jake had been scanning the crowd for a sign of the red-headed dragon keeper. “In forty-five minutes I’m going to be married!” Jake declared joyously. Charlie nodded and Jessica smiled brightly.

“I’m going to find Lea,” Jessica told the two men. “Someone has to make sure she gets into that dress.” Charlie laughed as Jessica disappeared in search of the bride.

Lea hadn’t wanted an elaborate wedding, or at least that was what she said. Lea was a consummate tomboy and hardly ever dressed up. Jake and Jessica had insisted that she indulge in a full out wedding though. Jake was a romantic at heart and Jessica thought that Lea might regret not having the experience later in life.

“I don’t know how she managed to convince Lea to do this but I owe Jess big time,” Jake said thoughtfully. “She’s too smart for her own good. I’m just waiting for her to discover the thirteenth use for dragon blood.”

“I reckon she’s about half way there,” Charlie said shaking his head.

Half an hour later Charlie found himself standing beside Jake watching Lea walk down the aisle towards them. Jessica smiled at him from her spot as maid of honor. Charlie grinned back.

The ceremony was short and sweet just like Lea wanted. It was a rather beautiful affair. Everyone on the reserve had dressed up in their finest robes. Several members of the Weasley clan had come to stay for the wedding as well as both Jake and Lea’s parents. Even Jessica’s twin brother Robert, who was extremely busy with his new job, managed to take time off to celebrate.

“You know what,” Charlie said to Jess as they twirled around the dance floor.

“What?” Jessica asked looking up at him.

“I was just thinking Jake and Lea will be lucky to be half as happy together as we are,” Charlie surmised.

“Don’t let Jake hear you say that,” Jess scolded Charlie. She was laughing and looked rather pleased despite herself.

After the wedding party had dispersed Charlie and Jess made their way back to the keepers’ tent. They sat in front of the fire by themselves seeing as Jake and Lea had taken a week off to honeymoon in Venice. Charlie couldn’t even fathom why they would go to Venice. Dragons hated that place.

Jessica was curled up comfortably in Charlie’s lap reading a huge book. It was no doubt one of those informational books that often put Charlie to sleep. But she found them interesting and Charlie found that rather endearing. He gazed steadily into the fire feeling rather satisfied with the way his life was turning out. Charlie couldn’t recall ever having felt so perfectly content.

 

 


End file.
